


A Lonely Boy's Symphony

by Intrexxt



Category: Shazam! (2019), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Canon, Pre-Spider Bite Peter Parker, Shazam! (2019) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 19:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18482827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intrexxt/pseuds/Intrexxt
Summary: Peter Parker just wanted to be left alone.After the death of May and Ben when he was nine, he was put into the system and whisked around to different foster homes. After running away countless times he was given one final chance by Rosa and Victor Velasquez, who had helped a young boy in a similar position as Peter just a month prior.Will Peter be able to stay for once? Will he accept his new foster family? What are his foster siblings hiding from him? And how does a spider bite make everything so much better, yet so much worse at the same time?





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Shazam and I couldn't resist writing something. I do have most of the basic plot thought out, the only issue is getting it written down (which might be a bit difficult considering I work 40+ hours a week and am a full-time university student).
> 
> Side Note: Pretend the events of Shazam! all took place in New York (Queen's specifically) instead of Philadelphia.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Please leave comments and kudos!

“You can’t keep doing this,” the social worker, Peter thought her name was Charlise, said. Her dark brown hair was put in a messy bun with plenty of flyaways and the wrinkles in her blouse and her ill-fitting blazer showed the world just how tired she was. Social work never paid well enough for how much it demanded, especially not when it came to cases like Peter’s. He was labeled everything in the book, truant, delinquent, troubled. He never stayed where he was put, and he ran away from every home that seemed happy to have him. At least they seemed that way on the outside. 

Peter bounced his knee, not out of anxiety but out of the necessity to keep moving. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder had always been a prospect in Peter’s life, but with so little money he couldn’t afford the evaluation, plus most people just pinned it on him being a problematic foster kid. He didn’t know if he had it and he frankly didn’t care. He was smart and he did his school work-- whenever he was there-- and as long as did that no one cared if he suffered in other ways. 

“Peter, seriously. You’ve run away again and again, for what?” Charlise paused for an answer that Peter didn’t give, “this is your last chance. You’re moving in with a lovely couple that run a group home. They’ve recently worked with a case similar to yours, a repeated runaway, and he’s very happy there now. They’re really looking forward to getting to meet you and welcome you into their family.” Charlise smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was trying her best to get Peter to respond positively. 

Peter looked through the window in the door, he spotted the heads of a man and woman. They looked happy as they talked and laughed with each other, and they looked at each other with genuine love in their eyes. It turned Peter’s stomach knowing that his mom and dad probably looked at each other like that, but he couldn’t remember any of it, and the memories of his aunt and uncle looking happily at each other were fading fast. “And what if I don’t wanna meet them.” Peter’s voice was as low as he could get it-- which wasn’t very low considering he hadn’t finished going through puberty yet-- and he kept his eyes trained on his lap. He stopped picking at his cuticles for just long enough to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. 

“You don’t have a choice Peter--”

“Then I’ll just run away again.” He spoke quickly. He looked at Charlise with the kind of stubborn intensity only found in teenagers. He watched as she sighed and closed her eyes, calming herself so that she could handle the situation appropriately. 

“Well, if you do that means you’ll run out of options and you’ll be sent Upstate to a Residential Treatment Facility. You’ll have to leave your friends behind, as well as most of the freedoms you have now. I do my best to avoid sending kids to residential facilities, they aren’t fun places, but Peter… this is your last chance.” Charlize’s eyes softened with genuine care and her tone became almost pleading, “The couple, Rosa and Victor Vasquez, they didn’t have to take you in. In fact, their home was already full and they weren’t looking for any additions until their eldest moved out for college. You are incredibly lucky that they were willing to take you in, if not you’d be in a car heading Upstate right now. You’re a smart kid Peter, you don’t wanna end up in a facility. I’ve run out of strings to pull for you. I know life is unfair, but please,  _ please _ , just stay with them. Enjoy the life they’re giving you while you still can, because if you mess this up I can’t save you.”

Peter didn’t respond. He just continued to bounce his knee and pick at his cuticles. He sniffed and grabbed his backpack before standing up and walking out the door to meet his new foster parents.

* * *

 

Parker luck was what his uncle called it. Ben had told Peter that his father and grandfather had called it that as well. But Peter had barely any memory of his father, and he was pretty sure he never met his grandfather. It was poorly named considering there was nothing lucky about it. It was more like a curse, and at this point Peter was pretty sure he was the cause of it. 

Busted water pipes, freezer burned steak, moldy bread, blown fuses followed the Parker’s wherever they went, it was a way of life. They made due and pushed forward, enjoying the fact that even though something bad always happened to them they still had their loved ones. At least it had been like that before Peter was born.

First, it was his parents. They dropped Peter off at May and Ben’s when he was four, got on a plane, and never came back. He didn’t learn that they were dead until two months later, and it took him even longer to realize that dead meant they were gone forever. 

“Did mom and dad leave because of me?” Was a pretty common question the first few years of Peter living with May and Ben. Their response was always to drop whatever they were doing and explain that it wasn’t his fault at all, that it was an accident and that his mom and dad had loved him very much. 

Peter never really believed them, but he stopped asking as he got older. 

He adjusted with the help of a child therapist and soon treated his aunt and uncle like they were his own parents, they ended up raising him for most of his life anyway. That was until he turned nine. 

It was his ninth birthday. It had fallen on a weekend that both May and Ben had free, so they had decided to make a day of it. They drove Peter everywhere and anywhere he wanted to go, they played music in the car and sang and danced as much as they could in their seats. But a stranger who had fallen asleep at the wheel after an all nighter put an end to the celebration in under a second. 

It was a head on collision. Two dead and two injured. Ben died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, May died three days later in the hospital due to complications, the driver sustained several injuries but survived, and Peter… he lived but it felt like his life had stopped right then and there.

He suffered a broken arm, a concussion, a few cuts along his arms and legs that required stitches, several smaller scrapes and bruises, and a wiggly baby tooth had popped out. Despite the seatbelt leaving a huge bruise across his chest, people told him he was lucky that he was wearing it. But he didn’t feel lucky, and there was a part of him that wished he hadn’t been wearing it. 

He dealt with a whole slew of different adults running around to figure out what to do with him. He had no family left, he had lost everyone before he got to double digits. He was passed from one adult to another, but their faces blurred together, they weren’t his aunt and uncle, they weren’t his mom and dad, he didn’t care about them. They’d leave him too eventually. 

When he first entered the apartment after the accident everything felt off. A different adult had brought him here to help him back his things days after the accident. The fruit left in a bowl on the counter had started to go bad-- save for the bananas that were a dark brown already-- and the sink full of the remnants of Peter’s birthday pancakes was letting off an unpleasant stench. 

He showed the man his room, but when he opened the door he hadn’t expected to see what was there. 

On his bed was a card sealed away in a light blue envelope, and around the room were wrinkled balloons that had been leaking air. He was meant to come home that night with his aunt and uncle and be surprised by the decorations and card, and he was certain there were presents for him hidden somewhere in his aunt and uncle’s bedroom. Seeing the scene in such a quiet apartment felt like a bastardization of what it was meant to be. Before he even realized what was going on he was sitting on the floor sobbing. 

The man that had come along with him made quick work of grabbing everything that Peter needed; clothes, small personal items, his spare inhaler and glasses, the card. He asked if Peter wanted to grab anything from his aunt and uncle's room, but he didn’t think he had it in him to enter that space for the last time knowing that May and Ben weren’t just behind the door waiting for him. 

It took less than an hour for the man to pack away all of Peter’s life into a backpack and a duffle bag and shuffle him back out to the car. He got Peter an ice cream cone that he didn’t eat on the way to his temporary home, the ice cream melting and dripping all over his hand and lap. But it only added to his miserable look with red and puffy eyes from crying and consistent hiccups and sniffles to go along with it. 

He would be staying with a small family until more permanent arrangements would be made with a foster family. He didn’t last two days at the house before he ran away. And thus began a long cycle of running away, moving, running away again, and moving again. Sometimes he was stuck in a shitty home, but other times he just felt like he couldn’t stay. Like if he sat still his Good Ol’ Parker Luck would catch up with him and steal him away too like it stole away everything he loved. Sometimes it sounded alright, but other times it terrified him. And so he ran away over and over again, because sometimes staying alone and taking care of yourself is better than getting everyone killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! The next chapter will introduce the Velasquez family and be less full of backstory. If you have any ideas please tell me, the plot isn't set in stone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really surprised how many people actually seemed to like this! Thank you so much for all your kudos and comments, I loved reading them and they made me so happy!! I was planning on waiting a week to post this chapter, but then I just couldn't wait anymore and I really wanted to share it with ya'll! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

When Billy Batson was pulled out of his dreams what he hadn’t expected to see was Freddy’s face right next to him. In fact, he hadn’t been expecting anything, and so it was perfectly reasonable for him to scream and shoot up. However, that sudden movement caused the two teens heads to crack against each other very noticeably. Freddy fell to the ground clutching his forehead, his crutch falling with him, and Billy fell right back onto his bed, doing the same. 

They laid like that, groaning for a few moments, before Billy spoke up, “what the  _ hell _ man?!”

“You didn’t wake up when Victor came in! They’re making pancakes downstairs, I thought you’d want to know,” Freddy hissed as he pressed his fingers into his forehead, he could already feel a small knot forming, “but next time I won’t wake you and I’ll save myself a concussion…”

Billy sat back up on his top bunk, still rubbing his forehead, “pancakes?”

“Yeah dude, pancakes.” 

Billy hopped off the top bunk, still shaking off the last dredges of sleep but far more awake after he slammed his head into Freddy’s. He picked up Freddy’s crutch and offered a hand to his foster brother, which he took before grabbing the crutch himself and slipping his arm into the cuff. They made their way downstairs to the kitchen where the rest of the family was congregating, all in their pajamas, to help get breakfast ready on this early Saturday morning. Music was playing, but the song kept changing every thirty seconds as a different kid gained control of the station. 

Freddy leaned over the counter and grabbed a slice of banana from the pile Mary was cutting and put it in his mouth before she could slap his hand away. She pointed the knife at him threateningly, but her eyes held no malice. They were just messing with each other, like a real brother and sister.

Despite all the strides he had made in accepting this family as his own after the supervillian incident, it was still sometimes bizarre to see sibling interactions. For years he had run from every attempted family and closed himself off, and he still wasn’t all too sure how to be a good brother. He loved his new family, but when it came to stuff like this he was reminded that he had only been a part of this family for about a month now and didn’t really understand how to fit in. 

Though, for only being a part of the family for a month they were pretty close, saving the world together kind of had that effect. 

“Freddy, help Darla and Eugene set the table. Billy come help me and Pedro cut up fruit,” Mary said with a soft smile. She was leaving part way through summer to go to early admission events at CalTech and Billy would genuinely miss her. 

“Hey! Why can’t I help cut up fruit?!” Freddy threw the arm that wasn’t helping to keep him standing straight out to the side indigitantly.

“Literally no one trusts you with a knife dude,” Billy said with a smirk, Freddy’s head turned quickly to look at his smirking foster brother, and when he turned back to the rest of his family to defend himself they were all looking at him with expressions that showed they all agreed. 

Freddy sighed and grabbed the bowl of blueberries that sat next to the bowl of banana that Mary was cutting before making his way to the dining table. Billy walked to the side of the counter beside Mary and picked up the knife she was offering him. Pedro was already cutting up strawberries and that left Billy with peaches. 

“I’ve never had peaches on pancakes before,” Billy picked up the fruit and rolled it around in his free hand. He didn’t really know where to start cutting a peach, he knew there was a pit in the middle and he knew that it was okay to eat the skin despite how weird it felt.

“Eugene loves them, Rosa put them on his pancakes when he first got here and he has to have pancakes with them every time ever since.” Mary stopped cutting the banana when she realized Billy didn’t really know what to do. She grabbed another peach from the pile-- there were only four-- and sliced and pitted it slowly enough that Billy could follow along. 

Billy followed the steps to the best of his ability and his first two peaches came out pretty rough, but he got the hang of it by the last one and he set the bowl out for Freddy to take later.

With eight people working on breakfast it wasn’t long before the table was set with a huge stack of pancakes, slightly burnt faken bacon, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, warmed maple syrup, and a variety of toppings. It smelled delicious and Billy couldn’t wait to dig in. 

“Alright, all hands on deck!” Victor said and all the kids piled their hands into the center. “Thank you for this family, thank you for this day, and thank you for this food, even if it’s not real bacon.” Everyone chuckled at his joke save for Darla, she had requested the faken bacon in the first place, and removed their hands from the center. “Alright, dig in!”

The family might not have been the most cohesive, but they usually ran pretty smoothly with only minor hiccups here and there, especially after Billy had accepted them as part of his own, but Saturday morning breakfast was a different matter entirely. 

Everyone scrambled for good portions of the pancakes and nearly all of the sides-- although, no one was really fighting over the faken bacon-- and within two minutes nearly all of the chocolate chips that had been placed on the table were gone. However, once everyone got what they wanted on their plate the commotion settled down to the normal scene of meals together. 

“So, any plans for the day?” Victor asked after swallowing his first bite of pancake. All the kids looked between each other, slightly confused, no one really made plans without telling Victor or Rosa since they were their guardians and there was established trust between them. After a few beats of silence Victor clapped his hands together and gave a huge grin. “Perfect! Because I was thinking we could have a sorta family day out, go to the mall, maybe to the movies. There’s a nearby theater that’ll give us a discount since we’re buying so many tickets.”

Everyone got huge grins on their faces at the mention of a family day together. Since there were so many of them and they usually did their own thing, it wasn’t often that they could actually go somewhere all together. 

“Can we see The Snow Princess?!” Darla shouted excitedly, it was the new animated children’s princess movie and Darla already had the picture book based off the movie. 

“I’m not sure Darla--” Rosa started before Freddy butted into the conversation.

“They’re still showing the cool Superman biopic, we should totally see that!” 

“Freddy, you’ve already seen that movie,” Victor attempted to reason. 

“Yeah, but I wanna see it again!” Getting to meet Superman had done nothing but worsen Freddy’s obsession with the superhero, which no one really thought was possible, nonetheless Billy didn’t regret bringing him in to meet his friend. Especially not after he heard what happened when he hadn’t shown up the first time. 

“We gotta find something we all like,” Rosa started.

“Yeah, if we got to choose what we wanted we’d be watching a romance,” Victor finished, raising his eyebrows at Rosa and kiss the air in her direction. She playfully smacked him and all the kids around the table audibly groaned at the display of affection. It was cute, but it was always weird watching adults flirt.

The conversation devolved from there into what stores the kids wanted to visit and if they could buy anything while there, but before long Rosa’s cell phone started ringing. She quickly pulled the phone out of her pocket to turn it off-- no cell phone use was allowed at the dinner table-- when she saw the caller ID and froze. She looked at Victor, her eyes wide and telling all he needed to know. Rosa stood up first, accepting the call and speed walking out of the room. The kids only heard a quick and concerned, “hello?” as she walked out of the kitchen and out of earshot. 

Victor stood up next, wiped his mouth with a napkin, set it down and spoke. “Just keep eating, we’ll be right back.” And with that he followed Rosa out.

The kids exchanged glances before Eugene spoke up. “Coming or going?”

Darla frowned. “Coming I hope, I don’t wanna lose anyone!”

Freddy nodded, “we’ve all been good and we haven’t met with any families. Definitely coming.”

Pedro, speaking up for the first time today, “we don’t have anymore room.”

Mary shrugged. “We will at the end of summer.” Everyone frowned at the idea. They all knew that Mary had gotten into Tech and would be moving onto campus during the summer. That means a new room would be open. And they could take in another kid or two. 

“So why are they calling now?” Eugene asked. 

“Wait, what’s going on?” Billy asked, he gathered the basics. Mary’s leaving for college at the end of summer and someone is coming, most likely before she leaves. But he wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. 

“They always make that face when a Social Worker calls.” Darla explained, and everyone else nodded in response. 

“Same thing happened before you showed up.” Eugene turned back to his pancakes after that, taking a big bite. 

“What d’you think they’re gonna be like?” Freddy asked.

“I hope it’s another girl, there’s too many boys. But as long as they’re nice I don’t care.” Darla was going to be the only girl soon enough, and while she loved her brothers she also wanted a sister. 

“Wait,” Billy said, leaning forward, “if there’s someone’s coming then we need to be all on the same page with…” Billy raised his hands and wiggled his fingers, his eyebrows raised. His foster siblings looked at him confusedly before he sighed a spoke up, “superheroes?”

All his siblings made an “oh,” noise and nodded their heads. 

“We can’t let them find out.”

“Wait, we can’t tell them about our powers?” Darla asked.

“Absolutely not,” Billy said, “same thing with Victor and Rosa. Remember, you wanna be a good sister right?”

Darla pouted, she didn’t like keeping secrets from people. Not only was she not that good at it, she liked being honest. Nonetheless, she nodded, accepting the challenge. 

“Good,” Billy turned to the rest of the table, “we don’t know them. If they find out about what we can do, it could be super dangerous. Plus… it’d kinda suck to be the only foster kid in the home without powers. It’s better if they just... don’t know.”

Everyone agreed, Billy was the unofficial leader of the team, considering he had the powers first and he gave them all their powers. So when it came to superhero based things, they listened to Billy. However, Freddy was a close second and often lead alongside Billy due to is insurmountable knowledge on superheroes. 

They moved back onto guessing what the new kid would be like when Rosa and Victor came back to the table. They looked a little stressed, but happy nonetheless. They didn’t sit back down at the table, but instead stood behind their chairs to speak. “So… good news!”

“A new kid is coming,” Freddy said, which set off a series of questions asked all at once:

“What’s she like?” Darla asked immediately after. 

“Are we gonna have to move stuff around? Get a new chair? A new bed?” Eugene brought up.

“How old are they?” Mary asked. 

“What’s their name?” Billy asked. 

Rosa and Victor seemed a little taken aback by the onslaught of questions. But it quickly devolved into chuckles. “Alright alright, I didn’t realize we were being so obvious.” Victor laughed. 

“Yes, a new kid is coming. He’s fifteen,” Rosa started explaining, and at the use of ‘he’ Darla frowned, “and his name is Peter.”

Pedro looked up at the English version of his name, he had been paying attention to the conversation, but also enjoying his pancakes before they got cold. Practically everyone was looking at him, now that they knew the new kid and Pedro’s names were so similar. “What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And don't worry, next chapter Peter will meet the Velasquez Family. 
> 
> I'd really appreciate it if you left a kudos and/or comment! And don't forget to subscribe if you wanna see where this story goes!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Avengers Endgame Release! I'm too busy with work and classes to see it tonight, but I'll be seeing it on Saturday! And since this fic doesn't follow the (later) MCU timeline it'll stay spoiler free. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoy!

The Velasquez house was buzzing with excitement, or it was more like Darla was buzzing with enough excitement for the entire house. After Rosa and Victor had announced their new addition they all finished breakfast and cleaned up, their weekend plans were put on hold as they set up Billy and Freddy’s room to fit another bed and made sure there was enough room to accommodate another person. 

Then Victor and Rosa left to pick Peter up, and all the kids in the house went to do their own thing. Darla waited by the bottom of the stairs finishing up her welcome sign and she got Mary to help her since Rosa left before she could help her map out the poster with a ruler, Pedro went to his and Eugene's room, Eugene posted up in the living room with his laptop to play video games, Freddy was logging the physical therapy he had forgotten to do for gym class, and Billy… had a problem.

“I gotta go,” Billy said, holding his phone after getting an encrypted message from Superman about an emergency. 

Freddy, however, was very excited. He stood up without his crutch, using the desk as support instead, “I’ll come with you!”

“No!” Billy put his hands up, “Rosa and Victor are gonna be coming back with Peter, I need you to cover for me if it takes too long.”

“C'mon dude! You can't just kick me to the curb like that!” Freddy sat back down at his desk so he didn't have to prop himself up anymore. 

“I'm not! It's not such a big thing that I need the whole team, I need you to make sure that no one finds out I'm gone. Can you do that?”

“Fine,” Freddy mumbled, propping his elbow on the desk and leaning his head on it. Billy started towards the door, but Freddy spoke up before he left. “Wait! What should I say? If I just say you went out then they'll think you ran away again.”

Billy had only been here a month, and while he now knew that his mom didn't want him he was still a problem case. “Uh, tell them I'm in the bathroom.” And with that Billy slipped out their bedroom door and out the back of the house. 

Freddy on the other hand turned to look at his notebook where he was logging fake physical therapy workouts and sighed before grabbing his crutch and standing up, deciding to actually do his exercises even it was just to relieve his annoyance at being left behind. 

Billy still wasn't back an hour and a half later when Victor and Rosa pulled into the driveway with Peter. Peter had spent a majority of the ride silently in the backseat despite all of Victor and Rosa's attempts at questions and conversation starters. They never pushed him to talk, but they made him know he was welcome to speak. He got out of the car, grabbing his backpack and duffle bag, and followed the couple inside. 

“We're home!” Rosa shouted, to which there was no response for a few seconds. However, there soon was the sound of someone running towards them.

“Wait!” Darla shouted, holding a glittery sign that said ‘Welcome Home New Brother!’ “I made this for you! You're Peter right?”

Before he could answer she hugged him and he froze immediately. It was obvious to Rosa and Victor in his facial expression, eyes wide and jaw tight, that physical contact was a no-go. Darla, however, had her face buried in Peter's stomach and couldn't see that. 

“I'm so glad you're here! I was hoping for another girl, but you're perfect the way you are!”

“Hey, Darla, sweetie” Rosa intervened, putting her hand between Peter and Darla, gently pushing her away. “Personal space, remember? Why don't you go make sure Eugene has a plan for dinner tonight okay?”

“Okay!” Darla said, letting go of Peter. She was still holding the sign. She held it out to him, “here! This is for you. Mary helped me make it.” 

Peter gently took the sign, considerably calmer now that he wasn't being hugged. “Uh, thank you.”

After he took the sign Darla ran off. He looked at the words, ‘Welcome Home New Brother’, and pursed his lips. 

“Sorry about that. That was Darla, she's a hugger,” Rosa laughed lightly to try and clear the air, but when Peter didn't respond she grew even more concerned. “Are you alright?”

“‘m fine,” Peter responded too quickly, “it's just a lot to take in.”

Rosa didn't believe him for one second, but she nodded anyway. “It's definitely a lot, but just know that if you ever need a break or need to talk, Victor and I are here for you.”

He looked at the couple with confusion. “Uh, yeah, thanks.” He said the same way he had responded to the poster Darla had made him. He cleared his throat and looked at his feet. Rosa’s lips formed a thin, worried line.

Her and Victor had become foster parents because they knew what the system did to people. They had both watched their friends let out into a world they weren’t prepared for, or give up before they ever got released. They knew what it was like to be a foster kid past the golden age where your chance of getting adopted was practically zero. 

Victor and Rosa wanted to give these kids a chance, and seeing Peter so despondent and depressed tugged on Rosa's heart strings intensely. She wanted to help him become the best he could be. 

“C'mon, I'll show you to your room,” she sent a smile in Victor's direction and he decided that she could do that on her own. She must've had some kind of plan. 

“I'll go make sure the kitchen isn't an utter mess,” Victor said, walking passed the stairs and into the kitchen. They had left before everything was clean and had asked the kids to just make sure it wasn't a total mess for their new addition. 

Rosa nodded and headed up the stairs, making sure that Peter was following her. He started to look a little less tense after he was no longer surrounded by both Victor and Rosa, but he still looked extremely uncomfortable. He followed Rosa up the stairs and almost ran into her when she stopped at the top. 

“What're you up to Freddy?” She asked.

Freddy was standing just outside the bathroom door, the door was closed and the light was on and he had a very suspicious look on his face.

“Nothing! Why does everyone think I'm up to something?!” 

“Because you always are.” Rosa chuckled and shook her head as Freddy pouted. They walked passed him on their way to the room that would now be shared by three teenage boys. “That's Freddy, you'll be sharing a room with him and Billy.” 

Rosa knocked on the door as they approached, and when there was no response she pushed open the door and looked around, surprised to not see Billy in the room. “You'll be staying in here. Make yourself feel at home.” She turned back to Freddy who had followed them from the bathroom door. “Freddy, where's Billy?”

“Bathroom,” Freddy said quickly, he nodded as spoke, hoping his lie wasn't too obvious. “Pancakes didn't sit well them him. He's taking a mondo dump.” 

Rosa sighed, “too much information.” She stepped from the door and rubbed a hand into Freddy's hair. “This is Peter. Make him feel comfortable, and don't talk anymore about bathroom stuff okay?”

“Like how it's gonna totally reek in there when Billy gets out, because little poop molecules are in the air and get into your nose?” 

Rosa sighed playfully and ruffled Freddy's hair again, “yes, exactly like that. Now are you done? Is it out of your system?” 

Freddy shrugged and Rosa removed her hand from his head. “Can I talk to Peter real quick in private? You can come back when we're done, but maybe don't just stand outside the bathroom door.”

“I'm not doing anything!” Freddy argued, trying to get Rosa to stop thinking that he was up to something. 

“Alright, alright, now shoo.” She closed the door partly, leaving a small crack so that Peter wouldn't feel closed in. “Peter…”

Petet froze. He was standing in the middle of the room and the fact that Rosa and him were alone and she wanted to talk to him caused his anxiety to spike. He felt like a deer in headlights and the grip he had on his duffle bag tightened until his knuckles were paper white. 

“are you okay?”

Rosa words caused Peter's brain to short circuit. Was she asking if he was okay? In all his experiences in foster homes, getting locked away in a room to ‘talk’ with the foster parent never ended well. But Rosa was asking if he was okay. “What?”

“I would normally give you time to adjust, but… the way you reacted when Darla hugged you…” Rosa's eyebrows were knitted together out of concern.

“I'm sorry, I just-- I didn't mean to.” 

“Hey, hey. You're fine, you're not in trouble or anything. I just wanna make sure you're okay. Or if you need a place to cool down or if I need to have a talk with Darla about touching or hugging or--”

“It's fine,” Peter was staring intently at the ground and picking at his thumbs cuticles. “It's really fine.” His voice was tight and it was definitely not fine.

Rosa bit her lip and nodded her head in thought. “I'm not gonna force you to open up, you just met me. But I want you to feel comfortable here. If you ever need anything you can come talk to me, or Victor, or even any of your foster siblings. We're all here for you.” She gave him a small smile to hopefully make him more comfortable. Then she raised her fist up slowly to ask him for a fist bump. He slowly, and very unassuredly, fist bumped her back.

And with that she left. And Peter was terribly confused. As she left Peter could see that she hadn't actually closed the door, she had taken into consideration the fact that closing the door in the room with a strange adult might've made him uncomfortable. He couldn't believe just how considerate she had been, in his experience with adults the only people who had cared so much about him had been his parents and his aunt and uncle. 

Before he could fully wrap his head around the thought the door opened again to the kid, Freddy, opening the door and walking in. “So Peter, do you fancy the odds?” 

“What?” Peter was even more confused now.

“This place seems nice, but it turns into a battle royale à la Hunger Games after it hits lights out.” Peter's eyebrows knitted together and Freddy laughed in response. “Kidding! It's a pretty sweet deal if you can handle living with eight other people.” Freddy walked passed Peter and to his drawer full of superhero memorabilia and covered in ‘Red Cyclone’ trinkets and a batarang. “You into suits? Wanna see the selfie I got with Superman and Captain Sparklefingers?” 

Before Peter could respond Freddy was shoving his phone into his face and on it was a photo of Freddy, Superman, and the new superhero that had showed up about a month ago. “Uh cool, I mean, I'm more into Iron Man and Captain America… but cool.” He shifted his backpack to the side so Freddy could see the little Iron Man and Captain America keychains he had hanging from the zipper. 

“Oh come on, you can't think  _ they're  _ cooler than freaking Superman! I mean Iron Man is just-- is just some dude in a suit and Captain America is just like a super... man. Not-- not like  _ the _ Superman

Peter shrugged and opened his mouth to mention that he’s pretty sure Batman was just a man in a suit when there was a faint boom and a scuffle from outside. He went to go check the window as Freddy sped out the room. Peter, suspicious, followed Freddy only to see another kid open the door to the bathroom and walk out. They whispered a few quick words to each other that Peter couldn't hear before they turned to face him. 

Peter raised one hand and gave a small wave to the person he could only assume was the kid, Billy, that was ‘taking a mondo dump’. At the wave both smiled and approached him. 

“Hey, I'm Billy. Do you like video games?”

* * *

 

_ Shit shit shit!  _ He was super late! He didn't think it would take as long as it did. He had gotten the message from Superman and he assumed it was going to be quick and easy and he'd make it back within the hour. But here he was trying to make it back two hours later. In all honesty that wouldn't be all that bad considering he could fly and had super speed, but no amount of speed he had could make up the fact that he finished after nearly two hours. 

As he approached the house he could see Rosa and Victor's van outside and he really hoped Freddy hadn't tried to make up his own lie for why he wasn't around. He circled the house to find the best way to enter when he saw it; a piece of paper taped to the window of the upstairs bathroom that read: ‘COME IN HERE. YOU HAVE A BAD TUMMY’.

Billy rolled his eyes at Freddy's note but appreciated it nonetheless. He flew up to the little bit of roof that stuck out under the window and said “Shazam” before doing his best to quickly climb through the window. 

He grabbed the piece of paper, crumbled it up, and threw it into the toilet that he flushed right after. He left the bathroom only to come face to face with Freddy.

“Did you kick any supervillain asses?” Freddy whispered excitedly, keeping his voice low enough that Peter wouldn't hear. 

“Shhh, keep it under wraps okay. I can't let anyone know.” Billy responded in a similar tone. He then looked up to see a new kid, presumably Peter, standing just outside the door to their room. The boy gave a small wave and Billy smiled at him. He knew how hard it was to just up and move to a new home, especially one this hectic. He also didn't want him to be suspicious at all. 

Peter would be staying in his and Freddy's room, which now just meant he not only had to hide his superheroing from Victor and Rosa, but also from a new roommate. He cursed the fact that his life had to be so complicated, but he also knew that it wasn't Peter's fault so he couldn't be annoyed with the other boy.

He smiled and headed towards Peter as he spoke, “Hey, I'm Billy. Do you like video games?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm hoping I can get the next chapter out soon, but finals are coming up and I might get too busy to find time to write.
> 
> Nonetheless, feel free to leave comments and kudos! They make my day every time I see a new one and they always make me more excited to write. 
> 
> Thank you again!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Endgame a few days ago and just WOW.  
> Anyway, since this fic is an AU it has literally nothing to do with Endgame and continue be completely spoiler free!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_Dear Peter B. Parker,_

_We regret to inform you that your scholarship and enrollment in Midtown School for Science and Technology has been suspended due to charges of truancy and delinquency that explicitly go against the established code of conduct._

_However, you are not expelled. You may return next semester with your full scholarship if you show recorded improvement in attendance at your temporary school and sign a contract with administration promising that your behavior will reflect Midtown's values._

_We understand your situation is difficult and, here at Midtown, we aim to give our students the best chance to thrive. However, we don't tolerate the behaviors you have displayed. If you fail to change your behavior or return next semester and continue such behavior we will be forced to expel you permanently._

_Signed,_

_Kenneth J. Morita_

_MSST Principal_

Above the name was a copied print of Principal Morita’s signature, and below was his contact information with the request to set up an appointment. Which Rosa and Victor did, and dragged Peter to come Sunday afternoon.

Morita explained the situation better than the letter could, and in his own firm but kind words. Peter was an intelligent student who had gotten a full ride scholarship to Midtown after he started taking upper level science courses in middle school. But with his absences they couldn’t allow him to skate by the ethical standards they had in place just because he was a smart foster kid. If he could prove himself he would be welcomed back and the truancy issues that got him suspended in the first place would be expunged from his record.

“I want you to do well, I really do Peter. You’re a good kid. I’ve been with you one semester already and your grades show that you’re well on your way to being one of the highest ranking students at this institution, but with your absences and your… history of running away, you won’t be able to keep up with the high school workload here. I see you’re in both the chemistry and engineering track, which means your workload is already tremendous. We want the best for you, and right now if you were to stay and continue as you are, you will fail and after that we can’t let you back in. Take this chance Peter, perhaps an easier workload will be better for the time being and you’re welcome to come back for the fall semester and continue as a sophomore alongside your peers.” Principal Morita spoke with calm and kind words, that nearly pleaded for Peter to just do what he was told.

“Where… where will I go?” Peter asked, he had been quiet for nearly the entire meeting. He was still coming to terms with the fact that he would no longer be in class with Ned. He would no longer be able to do Decathlon with his team. He would be going to a regular public school, and the last time he was in one of those he was bored to death. He was suited for Midtown, their STEM courses were advanced enough to, usually, keep him engaged, while their language and more artistic courses were formatted more for those with STEM brains. He didn’t totally suck at English and Spanish and Social Studies, and he thrived in Mathematics and Chemistry and Shop class.

But public schools, or at least what he remembers from middle school, were not made for him.

“Well, all of our other kids go to Fawcett Academy. We know them well and they work well with kids in difficult situations. It’s also a high security school and there’s guards at the exits so that students can’t leave without a guardian.” Rosa spoke, smiling. They could get Peter enrolled in that school in less than a day. Especially with letters from his case worker and Midtown.

“That’s not too far, it’s still in the district. If you can just sign some paperwork we can transfer his files there and they can send his new files back in the fall.” Morita smiled at Peter, positive that he’d be back for the fall semester. He believed Peter was a good kid, he just needed to get a fire lit under his ass.

After they filled out paperwork at Midtown, they had to do the same thing at Fawcett Academy. They gave him a temporary schedule for him to follow for the first few days until they placed him in the right classes for his level.

The principal of Fawcett Academy, Andrew Davis, read off Peter’s schedule to the trio. “As a Freshman, your schedule, for now, is English One, U.S. History, Beginner Chemistry, Spanish One, Algebra One, P.E., and you get to pick one elective, but since you’re coming in during the second semester there’s not a lot of choices left that have room for you. I think, we have photography, dance, JROTC--”

“I can’t do that. That schedule wont work,” Peter spoke up, the thought of taking such basic STEM classes and being bored out of his mind making him anxious. He needed to be engaged to want to stay.

“It’s only temporary. Once we get your records we can change things around.”

“Can I at least take an AP science and Math course? I was taking them at Midtown and-- and I want those AP credits.”

“We don’t… we don’t _offer_ AP courses to freshman unfortunately. However, we do have honors courses you can take after we get your records. It’ll only be a few days. Use this time to make some friends and get a feel for the school alright?”

Peter stopped listening after he heard that he couldn’t take AP credits. He might’ve skipped school a lot, enough to get him kicked out of Midtown for the time being. But he still wanted AP credits to make college easier. He only skipped to prevent CPS from catching him after running away from a foster home. But he was still acing his tests and preparing for the AP exams so that he could get a good scholarship or even graduate early and gain independence and get out of the system.

He felt sick, this temporary transfer would set him back a whole year. He couldn’t take the AP exam’s at the end of the year if he only took one semester of an AP class. He couldn’t get college credit this year, which meant that he’d be wasting a whole year for _nothing_.

He stood up and stormed out of the room, to the surprise of all the adults. Rosa watched him go and Victor stood up and followed him out of the door. Rosa was softer, she was gentle, she was the first chance. Victor was a bit tougher, and was the more disciplinary guardian. But he could also be gentle when need be, just like Rosa could be far scarier than Victor when she was angry.

Peter sat down on the floor a few yards away from the door to the principal's office. He curled up his legs, crossing his arms on top of them and hiding his head in the space created. Victor approached him slowly, remembering Rosa’s warning about touch and leaned down to talk on his level.

“Hey bud,” Victor tried, and Peter gave no response. “What was that all about.” Peter still didn’t respond, so Victor sighed and sat down against the wall next to him. “Changing school’s sucks. I would know, I transfered high schools seven times in three different districts. And don’t get me started on how many elementary and middle schools I went to.” He chuckled in an attempt to ease the tension. But Peter kept his head firmly in his arms. “Do you wanna talk about why you’re upset. Maybe we can help?”

“No.” Peter mumbled into his arms, and despite the defiance Victor counted that as a win. At least he was talking now, even if it was only one word.

“Alright, but if you don’t tell us there’s nothing we can do to help you. Closed mouths don’t get fed.”

“Closed mouths don’t catch flies.” Peter mumbled, and Victor was able to hear just how _upset_ the kid was. He’d had that saying said to him at least once a day in his third foster home whenever he started to rant about something he was interested in. After that he started keeping to himself, no one wanted to listen to his rants except for May and Ben. But they were gone. Ned would listen to him too and share ideas with him, but even now he was gone too. In his past few homes he wasn’t allowed to have Ned over, and Ned’s mom was too strict to let Peter stay over for anything longer than a study session. He wasn’t sure if Victor and Rosa would let Ned come over, or if Ned’s mom would let him travel that far to see him.

His main way of interacting with Ned had been school. And now… that was all over.

“Flies are a good source of protein.” Victor said after a quick beat, “at least I think so. People eat bugs all around the world.” He took a deep breath. “Listen Peter, is it about the AP classes? You’re the only kid I’ve ever met that’s upset he couldn’t take AP classes second semester at a new school.” He adjusted his seating position, he hadn’t sat on the ground in a while and his butt was hurting from the worn down vinyl floor. “They’re gonna figure something out for you, a few day is all it’ll take. Before you know it you’ll get moved into more advanced classes and maybe they can work something out with concurrent enrollment or honors courses or something close to AP course. But you don’t need to be in such a rush. If the workload of a couple regular classes is gonna be too light, spend the extra time just… being a kid. Because that’s what you are. And I have a feeling you haven’t gotten a lot of time to do just that.”

There were a few beats of silence before Peter slowly raised his head from his arms. His eyes were red around the rim and shiny with tears that hadn’t fallen yet. He hadn’t meant to get so emotional, but he just wanted to get out of the system as fast as he could, and this was one way he thought he could do it. And he had just watched it slip through his fingers because he had missed a few days too many of school. “I need the classes to get into college early. Then I can take care of myself.” Peter barely spoke above a whisper and he stared straight ahead of him instead of looking at Victor.

“You don’t have to though. That’s what we’re here for. You don’t have to be in such a rush to grow up, honestly being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked to be. You’re a kid Peter, you’re _fifteen_. Understand that. You have a whole life ahead of you to be an adult, but this is the only chance you get to be a kid. And while yeah, it’s not the best childhood, far from it actually, it’s what you got. And Rosa and I and all your foster siblings are gonna do our best to make the last few years of your childhood something good. But you gotta work with us on this. Take the classes, do the work, stay in school. If you do you your part, that means we can do a better job doing ours. If we have to chase you around and argue over things like this we aren’t gonna get anywhere. If you just wait it out, you’ll be back in Midtown taking a crazy number of AP classes and being a genius in no time. Alright?”

Peter had listened silently while Victor talked, and while he was still very upset at his classes Victor’s words had calmed him considerably. He gave a small nod, wiped his eyes, and stood up. Victor followed, but a lot slower and a lot louder as his older body struggled to get back up off the ground.

“Ready to go back in and finish this up? Then we can go get some ice cream, we won't tell nobody else. It’ll just us three’s secret.” He gave a small and together they walked back into the principal's office to finish registering Peter for classes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment! 
> 
> Next chapter should have Peter actually going to school.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for clicking on this! College finals are coming up so wish me luck! I'm not sure how much writing I'll be able to do, but so far I've consistently ignored studying to write fic so who knows.
> 
> Chapter Warnings: 
> 
> Past Child Abuse  
> (It starts right after the first horizontal line and ends at the second line if you'd like to skip it)

“Lemme see your schedule!” Freddy shouted the second they were on their way to school bright and early Monday morning. Peter knew that if he didn't show Freddy his schedule the kid would just _happen_ to find it somewhere, so Peter dug it out from his bag and handed it to Freddy. Both Billy and Freddy crowded around to see it.

“Yup! Just what I thought!”

“What?” It had only been two days and Peter didn't think he'd ever spent so much time generally confused.

“This is what I call the foster kid special. It's the same classes they give to every kid that transfers into the high school at a weird time. I got it, Billy got it, even Mary got it.” Billy had continued to scan the schedule while Freddy spoke, reading the class times and teacher names.

“We have chemistry, P.E., lunch, and english together,” Billy commented.

“Wait really?!” If Billy and Peter had those classes together, that meant that Freddy also had P.E. and lunch with Peter as Billy and him shared those periods as well. “Cool, more people for our table. We finally outnumber Beavis and Butthead!’

“Who?” Peter asked, knowing that there couldn’t be two people that went by the same names as the classically bad television show characters.

“Brett and Burke Breyer, two stupid older guys that share our lunch period,” Billy explained, “they’re huge assholes, who could still kick our collective asses.”

“I mean--” Freddy started.

“They’re bigger and stronger than us and have a car that they like to run people down with.”

“ _Had_ a car. It’s more like a pancake now.”

Peter wondered what was wrong with his two new foster siblings and why they bickered like _that_ . Peter might not be the best at reading the room outside of when he needed to lighten the mood, but he could tell that there was a secret between them. With how Billy kept insisting that the Breyer guys could kick their ass, Peter _knew_ that there was something they didn’t want Peter to find out.

And after he came to that realization he promptly dropped it. It wasn’t his business and hopefully he wouldn’t be around for too much longer for it to actually matter. Victor and Rosa were nice, but he knew that nice foster parents could just be a front to get government funding and he’d prefer to just get out of the system as soon as possible.

* * *

“Shut! Up!” Mrs. Philips shouted, “shut up you insufferable shit!” Mrs. Philips pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed loudly. “ _A closed mouth catches no flies_.” Her words were threatening and spoke volumes to the ten year old kid in front of her.

Peter shrunk against her harsh words and his nose stung as a warning that he was about to cry. “I’m sorry…” he hadn’t even realized he had done anything wrong.

“What did I say?!” Her words were venom and held enough force in them to finally push the tears out of Peter’s eyes. “God… now you’re crying... what’re you even crying for?! Man up and shut up or I’ll give you something to cry about!”

She raised her hand threateningly and Peter shrunk down even smaller. Both Mr. and Mrs. Philips had hit him a few times, but it was only when he broke stuff or made a mess or argued. He hadn’t been hit for speaking or crying yet. But he knew they would. His heart stuttered in fear and he felt like throwing up, which only served to make him cry even harder.

“Fucking--!” Mrs. Philips brought her hand down hard against Peter’s face, and the little boy fell to the ground, curled into a ball, and sobbed even harder. The louder sobs only served to fuel the raging fire that was Mrs. Philips and she sent a kick to the downed child’s side, “shut up!”

Peter choked on his sobs as the kick and crying caused his diaphragm to spasm. Mrs. Philips let out a frustrated groan and left Peter on the floor to sob until he could push himself off the ground and go to the small twin bed he had in his room.

The next morning he had a distinct hand shaped print on his face and discoloration on his side from where the kick bruised him. So Mrs. Philips called him into school sick and got him a pint of ice cream from the store, mumbling apologies and promises that it would never happen again.

It always happened again. And Mrs. Philips always apologized. It only stopped four months later when she broke his arm and took him to the hospital three days later. The doctors picked up on the abuse and removed him from the home. The case worker was shocked by the knowledge of what had happened to Peter, and she questioned why he didn’t tell anyone sooner.

Peter responded with, “she’s always nice when she isn’t mad.”

* * *

The school bus pulled up outside of the school and everyone got off and stood together as a group, all the foster kids in a line like ducks in a row. They walked across the street together and into the building, Darla explaining how the school worked.

Peter was very uncomfortable with all the security at the school. Midtown had a lot looser security, which was probably why it was so easy for him to sneak out, but here the security was tight with a guard at seemingly every point of entrance or exit and metal detectors in the front.

Darla was still talking after he made it through the metal detector and she held out a hand to him. “Have a good day big brother!”

Peter looked at the hand, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, before he slowly grabbed her hand like a handshake.

Darla squeezed his hand and smiled, “it’s a hand hug! Rosa said I should respect people’s personal space and only do hand hugs until they say I can hug them with my body.”

Peter paused for a minute as he processed what was going on. Not only had Rosa picked up on how uncomfortable he was with touch, especially hugging, she also actively helped make Peter more comfortable. It’d been so long since someone went willingly out of their way to help him like that. It left him with a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach that was something between indigestion and the feeling after drinking still warm hot chocolate.

“See you later!” Darla said, letting Peter’s hand go and walking away. Peter watched after her.

“See ya,” he didn’t speak too loudly over the crowd, but she still heard him and gave him a toothy grin and a wave.

Billy watched the whole exchange before grabbing Peter’s attention so that they could head towards their homeroom chemistry class.

“She's a sweetheart,” Billy said with traces of guilt for how he had treated her when he first arrived. “Anyway, we have Ms. Fernandez for chem, she's kinda tough but in a… caring kinda way.” He wasn't sure how to explain it, he wanted to say it was like the tough love of a mother or older sister, but he didn't really know what that was like himself. And considering Peter was his foster sibling he was pretty sure he didn't know either. Peter nodded his head, but didn't say anything so Billy continued, “the class is kinda tough too. I mean, I don't know how much you know about chemistry, but you could probably pick it up quick enough. And if you don't well… she'd understand.”

Peter's brows furrowed together in confusion. Had Rosa and Victor not told the others about his old school? Before he could explain that he would have _no_ trouble in beginner chemistry they were entering the classroom and taking their seats.

It wasn't long before the bell rang and the class finished filling up with last minute students. The teacher was already at her desk, working through attendance on her laptop until the last of the students arrived.

“Good morning guys,” Ms. Fernandez said, “I hope you guys had a good weekend.” He moved from behind her desk and continued addressing the class. “Today we're welcoming a new student, Peter,” all eyes went to Peter and he shrunk down at the stares, “I want you all to be nice and help him as we work through this unit. It's one of the more difficult ones that students struggle with.”

Peter couldn't help but bite his lip in amusement. There was no way any unit in beginners chemistry would be difficult for him.

Ms. Fernandez started the lesson, talking about balancing equations, and when she was no longer paying attention Peter slipped his phone out of his pocket. He brought up his text thread with Ned and sent him a quick message.

_‘Hey sry for radio silence. I got moved’_

It wasn't even a full minute before he got a text back.

_‘I figured when u didn't show up. Where u at?’_

_‘idk. some school called fawcett??’_

_‘lame’_

_‘ikr! they put me in BEGINNER chem!’_

_‘riiiiip’_

“Mr. Parker,” came Ms. Fernandez’ voice, pulling Peter away from his conversation with Ned as he looked up to see her with her hands on her hips. On the board behind her was a sample equation. “I know you're new here, but it should be expected that no one should be on their phone during class.”

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled, slipping his phone back into his pocket as other students gave muffled snickers.

Ms. Fernandez turned back to the board and continued her lesson. It wasn't long before Peter lost all interest-- he already knew what she was teaching!-- and slipped his phone out again. He had three new unread messages from Ned.

_‘does this mean ur dropping deca??_

_can u be in deca if ur in another school??_

_will i compete against u??’_

_‘nah, i can't be in deca but im p sure this school doesnt have a team. if it does i wouldnt join lol’_

_‘oh cool lolol’_

“Mr. Parker!” Ms. Fernandez spoke with more harshness. “I don't know how you expect to succeed in this course if you spend all of class staring at your phone.”

“Sorry, I just-- I already _know_ this.”

“You already know how to balance chemical equations?” Ms. Fernandez sounded very doubtful.

“Yes, and I have for years.”

Ms. Fernandez’ mouth formed a thin line. She turned back to the board and wrote out a slightly more complex, yet still simple for Peter, unbalanced chemical equation.

Billy leaned closer to Peter and aggressively whispered, “what do you think you're doing?”

Before Peter could respond Ms. Fernandez finished writing and turned back to Peter. “Alright then, prove it.”

Peter stood up from his desk chair and walked to the board. He grabbed a marker and balanced the equation with ease, skipping the simple steps beginners would complete to make sure they got the right answer. He had a far deeper knowledge of chemical equations than the average fifteen year old and it was obvious with how immediately he solved it.

Ms. Fernandez’ mouth tightened even more, and Peter realized that maybe he shouldn't have pushed her buttons as much as he did. She went to her desk, flipped through a couple of papers, and came back to write an even more complex equation on the board. Peter balanced that one as well with no hesitation.

Ms. Fernandez was surprised to say the least. “Where were you before you came here?” She sounded genuinely curious and not annoyed like she had when she spotted Peter on his phone.

“Midtown School for Science and Technology… I-- I was in their chemistry and engineering program.”

Ms. Fernandez’ eyes went wide. “Then why are you in here? You should be in a far more advanced class.”

Peter shrugged instead of explaining how Fawcett refused to move him to an advanced class despite being obviously prepared for it.

Ms. Fernandez shook her head and let out a few disapproving ‘tsk's, however there was a small smile on her face. Her disapproval wasn't directed at Peter, instead it was at the school itself. “Well then, sit back down. I'll talk to one of my colleagues. For the rest of the class stay off your phone, help your peers if you see them struggling.”

Peter slowly made his way back to his desk and sat down. He sunk pretty low in the chair in an attempt to shrink away from the attention he was getting.

Ms. Fernandez spent the rest of the class discussing how to balance equations and leading the students through the first few equations on a worksheet before giving them the last ten minutes to work on it. She wrote the homework pages on the board and said she'd collect the worksheet tomorrow before letting the class out for the day.

Peter had helped Billy and a few other students fill out some questions on the worksheet, but most people left him once the bell rang. Billy stayed and walked with him for a bit, asking question after question about how he knew what he knew and what other subjects he was good at. However, their passing period was only five minutes long and Billy and Peter had to split to go to their separate classes.

Peter saw Billy and Freddy again during gym class. Freddy gave the teacher his physical therapy log before working with an assigned physical therapist for the class. All three boys ended the class sweaty and tired and parted ways for their next class.

The next time Peter saw Billy and Freddy it was during lunch. A high school cafeteria was a war zone, and Peter was a fresh faced new recruit thrown out into the battle. At least in Midtown everyone was a nerd, and while he was bullied there it wasn't that bad compared to what he heard about public schools.

He had dreaded going to lunch since he first got his schedule. At least he had Billy and Freddy, which made it more bearable. He wasn't completely alone, albeit was only the three of them at the whole table .

The food looked completely unappetizing. There were barely passable chicken nuggets and cold soggy fries. There was also a fruit cup and milk. It definitely didn't seem like even remotely enough for a high school student, and yet Pete found it hard to actually want to eat it.

Freddy and Billy were sitting next to him, talking wildly, when two older boys showed up.

“Hey, dipshits,” one of the boys said.

“Brett. Burke.” Freddy frowned annoyedly as he spoke, obviously not a fan. Peter remembered that those were the two boys he had called Beavis and Butthead, and the more he witnessed the more he realized the nickname was very fitting. “What do you want? You can’t touch me or you’ll get wedgied into next week.”

“Call off the Red Cyclone.”

“Why? So you could kick my ass again? I’d rather not.”

“Face us like a man, you can’t just stand behind a hero all the time.”

Freddy opened his mouth to retort when a hand landed on both Brett and Burke’s shoulders. Behind them was a young teacher with hair so blond it almost looked white and who gave off an air of authority and command. He looked between the two boys and at the rest sitting around the table. “Why don’t you two run along, get some lunch, finish some work. And if that doesn’t sound fun I could always just send you to the principal’s office.”

Brett and Burke wanted to argue that they hadn’t actually done anything against the rules, but they quickly realized that going to the principal’s office could open the gate to getting in trouble for everything else they’ve done. So they left, but not without letting their displeasure be known.

Once they were gone the older man looked at the trio before him. “I’m looking for a Peter Parker.”

Both Billy and Freddy’s eyes went to Peter, “uh, yeah that’s me.”

The man smiled, “Ms. Fernandez told me about you. I’ve heard you have a mind for chemistry.”

Peter shrugged, not really sure how to respond without sounding very conceded. “I was in the chemistry track at Midtown. “

“Well, isn’t that just fantastic. I think I can help get you into a more advanced class or even just the materials for the class . That way you can have something to keep yourself busy.

Peter found himself smiling without even realizing it. This teacher he’d never seen before was being extremely nice to him just because he heard that Peter was intelligent. “That-- that’d actually be really cool.”

“Perfect!” The teacher clapped his hands together and smiled. “If you want we could talk more about this in my office. You can finish your lunch there and if we go a little after I can write you a pass.”

“Yes! Uh, yeah, sure.” Peter stood up, swinging his backpack onto his back and grabbing his paper lunch tray. He faced the older man, gripping his tray tightly in excitement. Finally, something seemed alright. He would be getting into a class that he liked, and if not then at least he’d be able to teach himself. Someone was willing to help him learn instead of just telling him to wait and enjoy the easy classes. “This is so cool, really. Thank you Mr… uh…”

“Westcott.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave comments and kudos, it helps motivate me to keep writing!
> 
> Also if there's any trigger warnings or tags that I miss/forget to add please tell me. I'm adding tags as I go/get to things. 
> 
> Thank you again!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!
> 
> I never expected to get the kind of response that I got for the last chapter. I posted it and came back a few hours later to so many comments! I read and reread all of your comments and they just make me smile because you guys like the story enough to be worried for poor Peter.
> 
> I loved seeing people know who 'Westcott' is, and while I hadn't originally planned to include him in this story he's definitely going to be playing a bigger role than originally anticipated. But don't worry, I will include a trigger warning in the beginning notes if/when any common trigger comes up. (And if you need me to warn for anything else tell me in the comments)
> 
> As a thank you (and also because I'm too impatient to wait another day) I'm posting this chapter a bit earlier than I usually would. 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy it and thank you again for all your comments and support!

Peter followed Mr. Westcott out of the cafeteria and into a small office, all the while holding onto his lunch tray like the excited child he was. The room held multiple desks, it was the shared office of the majority of the science department at Fawcett, which meant there wasn't much room to move around. Nonetheless, each teacher had their own small desk and workspace. Mr. Westcott pulled out a chair for Peter who promptly sat down and deposited his lunch tray on the desk in front of him. Mr. Westcott sat on the opposite side, his masters degree in chemistry displayed proudly on the wall behind him in a humble frame.

Peter took a bite of one of the soggy fries as Mr. Westcott got settled in his desk chair, and even the lackluster fry couldn't upset him right now. 

“So, you transferred here from Midtown?”

“Yeah, today is actually my first day.” Peter fiddled with the sleeves of his jacket, burning off some of the excited energy he was feeling. “I'm really hoping to get back into-- go back to Midtown in the fall.”

“Well, I can hopefully make your time here worthwhile.” Mr. Westcott smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me, what were you learning before you transferred?”

“Uh,” Peter looked up and away, trying to remember what he had last done in class. “I think we were working on, like, the structure of molecules. Molecular geometry. That's the last thing I remember doing.”

Mr. Westcott nodded in thought. “That's pretty advanced for a freshman.”

“Well  _ I'm _ pretty advanced for a freshman so,” he shrugged and picked at his soggy fries. He wasn't often one to brag, but so far noone, sans Mr. Westcott, understood that he fsr beyond beginners chemistry.

“Do you want something else to eat?”

“What? I mean yeah, but… that's all the cafeteria had.”

Mr. Westcott shook his head and laughed before pulling out his cellphone. “I can get food delivered.”

“What? No, no, no! You don't have to do that.” Peter didn't want anyone to spend money on him, especially not someone he just met who was already willing to help him. 

“I know I don't have to,” Mr. Westcott spoke without looking up from his phone, “I want to.” 

“Um… I-- I already have food though.”

“I wouldn't call that food. What're you thinking? McDonalds or Chinese?” When Peter didn't respond Mr. Westcott looked up from his phone with an expression that showed there was no room for argument. “I insist.”

“...McDonalds.” Normally Peter would have preferred Chinese food, but he could get something off of the dollar menu from McDonald's since Mr. Westcott wouldn't  _ not _ let him get something to eat. After a few more rounds of back and forth about what to get the food was ordered and the delivery app said it would arrive within the next twenty minutes. Just enough time for Peter to get the food before he'd have to head back to class. 

They continued to talk as they waited for their food, and the more they talked the more comfortable Peter felt. It had been so long since someone had praised his intelligence so adamantly, teachers in Midtown knew he was smart but they were also annoyed with how often he skipped and other students only seemed to be annoyed by his intelligence. Mr. Westcott, however, just brought up challenging and complex theories and proceeded to look on in wonder as Peter talked about what he knew. For the first time in a very long time Peter felt like he could just  _ talk _ . Mr. Westcott wouldn't hit him, yell at him, or complain about him. 

They talked until their lunch arrived and then they continued to talk as they walked to the front office to pick it up. And as they sat down in the lobby for the last few minutes of lunch they were still talking, not wanting to finish even as the bell sounded, signalling the end of the  current lunch period and the start of passing period. 

“Peter, you really are something special. I'd go even so far as to say you're a modern day Einstein.” Mr. Westcott looked at Peter with genuine admiration before standing up. “I hate to cut this short, but we both have classes to get to. I'm gonna do my best to figure something out for you. Your potential cannot be wasted in a beginners chemistry class. Swing by my office after school and hopefully I'll have something by then.” Mr. Westcott held out a hand and Peter stood up to shake it.

“Thank you so much Mr. Westcott. Really.”

“Call me Steven-- actually, you can call me Skip. It’s what my friends call me. But not around any administration. They don't like it when teachers and students aren’t professional. They don’t want any cross generational friendships forming.”

_ Friendship. _

Were they becoming friends? They had just spent an entire lunch period talking about a mutual interest, something he had only done before with Ned and he considered Ned a dear friend _. _

“Oh yeah, uh right. Thank you mist-- Skip.”

“I’ll see you later Einstein.” Skip said, walking into the growing crowd of students. Peter sighed, finishing his lunch and throwing the bags away before walking to his next class. 

Peter spent the rest of the school day way too excited. He was continuously bouncing his legs and fidgeting with his school supplies. He had been easily distracted in chemistry, but now he was far too focused. Only he wasn’t focused on class. 

There were a few more painful new student introductions and boring classes until the final bell rang and Peter nearly ran out of his final class. But he shared his last period, English, with Billy. And Billy stopped him before he could leave. “C’mon, we gotta catch the bus back home.”

“I’m not going home,” Peter said, not realizing what it sounded like until he saw Billy’s alarmed face. “I mean, I will. I’ll go back to the home later. I gotta meet with a teacher right now though.”  

“Did you already get detention?”

“No!” He was bouncing on his feet, excited to get back to talking about chemistry and other scientific fields with someone who both understood and listened to him. “Remember the teacher that took me at lunch? He’s gonna try to get me into a more advanced class. Fawcett won’t let me take any AP classes as a freshman.” 

“Oh,” Billy paused. Chewing on the inside of his cheek. Victor and Rosa had told Billy about Peter’s tendency to run away, and to keep an eye on him. They had hoped that since Billy had been the same way barely a month ago he could help show Peter that it was a safe place for him to stay and just be a kid while he still can. Nonetheless, the inviting atmosphere Victor and Rosa wanted didn’t negate the fact that Peter has, on multiple occasions, fled from school. They wanted Billy to make sure that Peter came home right after school with the whole family, instead of trying to run off. “Well, we really take the school bus home together, ya’know. If you miss it you’ll have to get home by yourself.”

Peter nodded, “I know the bus routes. I’ll be fine.” And with that Peter walked away from Billy and through the crowd in the quickest path to get to Skip’s office. 

Billy sighed, leaving the building to meet the rest of his family out front.

“Hey Billy!” Darla greeted him excitedly. He smiled and waved back at her. 

“Hey. Where’s Peter? Don’t you have a final period with him?” Mary asked. Victor and Rosa had told her too, being the oldest and often the one in charge if Victor and Rosa weren’t around she needed to know that Peter was a runaway liability if they ever had to temporarily leave the kids in her care. 

“Yeah, I do. I told him that we take the bus home, but he said he had a meeting with a teacher.”

“Did he already get in trouble?!” Eugene exclaimed. “That’s gotta be a record!”

“No, he said he’s trying to get into a higher level chem class or something. He’s apparently really smart.”

“Oh wait, was that why that one teacher took him at lunch? Uh… Mr. Westcott, right?” Freddy asked, scrunching up his face when he tried to think of the name. Billy nodded. 

“Mr. Westcott?” Mary sounded confused. “That’s my AP chem teacher. He's cool, but…”

“So he didn't get in trouble? Yay!” Darla shouted, throwing her hands up. “I can make him a poster! It'll look all science-y! And pink!”

“A poster for what?” Pedro said, walking up behind his foster family. He had only heard the end of Darla's statement. His teacher had needed to talk to him about getting help outside of school to improve his test grades. 

“Peter's a genius!” Darla shouted.

“Hey! He didn't call him a genius,” Freddy retorted.

* * *

“You're a genius, Peter,” Skip said, leaning forward on his desk, “a real Einstein. But I can't put you in an AP class. The system still recognizes you as a freshman and keeps blocking my request, even when I put in that you have the needed prerequisites and teacher approval. And since I'm only a teacher I can't override it. I'm sorry.” Peter visibly deflated at Skip's words, he had really been looking forward to doing something more challenging. “Hear me out though, we can set up some outside, quote-unquote, uh, ‘tutoring sessions’ where I can teach you more advanced, college level chemistry. It wouldn't count towards an AP credit, but you wouldn't be behind when you go back to Midtown.”

“I mean… I guess that works...” He was still disappointed that he wouldn't be able to take the classes he wanted and get credit for them. He leaned back in his chair, slumping a little in disappointment.

Skip frowned and leaned back as well, but in thought instead. “You know, my AP class is going on a field trip to Oscorp to tour their chemical research and development department, they've been working on some pretty crazy stuff and the AP class has been working so hard lately that I thought it'd be a nice trip.” Peter stared at Skip, slight confusion etched in his face. So, he continued, “the thing about field trips is that you don’t technically have to be a part of the class to go on one. So say if a freshman got their hands on a permission slip, got it signed by their parent or guardian, and got on the bus... they could go with the AP chemistry class to Oscorp, no problem.”

Peter’s eyes grew wide as he caught onto what Skip was saying, he started to smile and Skip smiled back. 

The older man opened one of his desk drawers and dug around in it until he pulled out a small permission slip for the field trip. He set it on the desk between them. “I can’t stay and chat for much longer, I’m very busy after school most of the time. I coach the elementary school boys soccer team here at Fawcett and practice is gonna start in the next fifteen minutes so I have to go and change and lead them through some drills.” Skip stood up as he spoke, grabbing his bag from behind the desk. “But I’ll come grab you from lunch again tomorrow if you’d like. That way we can work out a meeting schedule for tutoring and maybe even draft up a little lesson plan. Sound good?”

Peter was looking at the permission slip while Skip talked. He hadn’t grabbed it yet, still surprised that Skip was going to let him go on the AP Chemistry field trip. He only looked up when Skip asked his question. “Yeah-- yes, it’s perfect. I hate the cafeteria,” Peter mumbled the last bit more to himself than to Skip. Skip chuckled nonetheless and walked passed Peter, playfully patting him on the shoulder as he went. 

“You should probably get going, security doesn’t like it when kids are in the school without a teacher or club.” And with that, he left. And Peter sat in the chair for a few more moments, looking at the permission slip. He grabbed it and put it in his bag, hoping Victor and Rosa would be fine with it-- and if they weren’t he would just forge their signatures-- before standing up and making his way out of the school. 

It wasn’t until he got off the public bus three blocks away from the house that he realized he hadn’t even flinched when Skip touched him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Please feel free to keep yelling about/at Skip in the comments, or really about anything! I love comments and I love reading about what you guys think!
> 
> Thank you again!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are almost over! I can't believe that I managed to get this chapter out on time (it's even longer than usual!) with all the tests and essays and work. But every time that I was lacking motivation I reread all of your comments and they just make me wanna write so much! Your guys comments are so inspiring to me, seeing that people are theorizing about, and complimenting, this story brings me so much joy!
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoy!

Victor and Rosa couldn't be mad at Peter for not coming home with everyone else, as they had never told him that he had to. Besides that, he showed them the permission slip for the field trip and that helped to solidify his alibi of meeting with a teacher. So instead they just asked him to come home with everyone else from then on, and if he needs to stay after again to just send them a text so they know.

Victor was happy to sign the permission slip, Peter wanting to go on a field trip showed that he had at least some level of engagement at Fawcett instead of just being upset about not attending Midtown. 

Victor was quick to point out that he had signed the same permission slip just last week for Mary which was good for them, but Peter didn't find it as amazing as Victor and Rosa did.

The next day Skip came at lunch to take Peter to his office, just like he said he would, and Peter was already standing by the entrance of the cafeteria, holding a completely unappetizing tray of questionable meatloaf and room temperature corn, and arguing with the security guard that wouldn't let him leave without a teacher. After Skip arrived and the security guard was forced to let Peter leave they went to his office, where two bags of still warm McDonald's sat on his desk. And since Peter hadn't been there to convince Skip otherwise, Peter's bag contained food that definitely wasn't on the dollar menu. 

“I'm usually very busy after school with either coaching or office hours for my students to ask questions. “But if you're free over the weekends I can usually do Saturday or Sunday afternoons,” Skip spoke between eating his fries. He was leaning his elbows on the desk, shirt sleeves rolled up. The atmosphere was far more casual than yesterday. 

“The weekend?” Peter wasn't thrilled about attending a pseudo-class over his weekends, but if it was his only option he would. “I mean sure, but I'd have to talk to my-- um…” Peter awkwardly looked away, closing in on himself. He wasn't embarrassed about being a foster kid perse, but he didn't really like telling people. Once someone knew he was a foster kid they tended to treat him differently.

“Guardians? Victor and Rosa Vasquez right?” Skip said casually, not having any problem with Peter being a foster kid. Peter nodded, realizing that Skip had easy access to his school file, including information about whoever was put as his parent/guardian. “I've met them before, lovely couple.”

Peter's body language closed off just as Skip said that. It wasn't that Victor and Rosa weren't good foster parents, in fact they were amazing foster parents, but he couldn't help but feel trapped in a way. He knew that they were worried he'd run away, and no matter how much they genuinely tried to interact with him he felt distrustful. Every time, he felt like he could trust any previous foster parent they always proved otherwise. It was suffice to say that he didn't easily trust anyone in charge of him. 

But Skip wasn't in charge of him, in fact they were on nickname basis. Skip never asserted his authority over Peter, they were on equal ground. And even if Skip was a teacher with a master's degree and Peter was a high school student, Skip wasn't  _ his _ teacher. He was just someone who wanted to help him stay on track in a shitty situation. 

“Mary's in my class,” Skip said and Peter nodded, he put that together after finding out that Mary was going on the same trip. “They know me, I actually wrote a letter of recommendation for her. She's a good kid, very smart.” Peter wasn't really responding, he only shrugged, still closed off due to the mention of his foster parents. Skip leaned back, taking a fry with him as he went, before speaking again. “I could talk to them about it if you don't want to. I'm assuming they know how much you want to-- no,  _ need  _ to-- be doing more advanced stuff than what you're doing in beginners chem.” He pointed the fry at Peter, getting a small smile from the kid. “I bet I could explain it in a way that would make them love the idea.” Skip ate the fry and watched as Peter opened back up. 

“You’d do that?”

“Of course, anything for an Einstein like you.”

* * *

The next few days until the field trip were very tedious for Peter. The classes were all boring, if not downright humiliating-- he hated playing dodgeball in gym class and he hated it even more since it was just like every high school movie he’d seen-- and Skip didn’t come to grab him for lunch. He was stuck eating crappy school food and listening to Beavis and Butthead yelling slurs across the cafeteria. 

It wasn’t until the Thursday night before the field trip that Peter got word of Skip talking to Rosa and Victor about them meeting over the weekends. He had been working on Spanish homework-- he always struggled with conjugation-- when he received a message via his school email. It was a confirmation of his new weekend tutoring schedule. The service was usually reserved for kids struggling to keep at grade level, and the wording of the generic email made that very obvious, but Peter knew what that meant. He’d be getting advanced chemistry lessons from Skip. He could finally get a real challenge. He abandoned his homework and went to go watch Freddy and Billy play video games. They had been playing on mute out of respect for Peter working, but when he came to watch-- not saying a word-- they unmuted the game and continued playing in quiet, brotherly solidarity.  

The next day Peter showed up with unfinished Spanish homework that he wouldn't have to even turn in until Monday. He walked with Billy to his first period chemistry class, reminded Ms. Fernandez that he was going on the AP Chemistry field trip, and promptly left to meet with Skip's classes in the front of the school. 

Mary, who Peter had just seen before going with Billy, was already there along with a few other students. He nodded at her and she smiled back before continuing her conversation with her friends. 

As more students and eventually teachers showed up Peter realized that he was definitely the youngest of the group. There were two sophomores taking AP Chemistry in the entire group, but Peter was the only freshman and that made him feel very alone. 

When Skip showed up Peter stuck near him. He was the only person Peter knew, sans Mary, and the person he felt most comfortable with. Skip insisted that he didn't mind, and let Peter talk to him the whole ride to Oscorp. The rest of the trip was filled with older teenagers, he didn't need to guide them or entertain them on the ride. So when Peter started to apologize for talking his ear off the whole ride, Skip just waved it off and said it gave him something to listen to. 

When they arrived at Oscorp Peter was awestruck. He'd seen the building many, many times from the outside, but never with the intention of entering. It made him nervous and excited all at once, so much so he couldn't help but bounce on the balls of his feet when they entered and were shuffled to the elevators to go to the chemical research and development floors. A hand fell on his shoulder and Peter flinched at first contact, he stopped bouncing immediately, but when he looked to see who had touched him it was Skip and the spike of fear faded. Skip's hand stayed on Peter's shoulder and while he wasn't exactly comfortable with the touch he didn't shy away from it. 

The doors opened high in the Manhattan skyline to reveal a long hallway with multiple doors and large viewing windows on either side. The tour guide, a young lady Peter had paid no attention to, started to explain the layout. 

“This is our main R and D floor for chemical and biological engineering. Since you all are AP chemistry students we'll be spending most of our time on the chemical side,” she said before leading the group out of the elevator. She directed them through the first door on the left and continued to explain what that room was for. 

The rest of the tour continued like that, going from one room to another all on the left side of the hallway. Each room focused on different projects, and there was a lot of crossover between the biological and chemical side. Oscorp's main focus currently was to chemically synthesize naturally occurring biological properties to help find solutions to daily problems. Their only competitor at the moment was Stark Industries, but even then Stark Industries focused mainly on the mechanical side of things versus Oscorps chemical and biological view. 

At around noon the tour stopped to take the group to the cafeteria. Everyone received a meal voucher and was told to meet by the elevators in an hour to finish the tour. Peter took his voucher and got a considerably good looking sandwich compared to what he normally got at school and a few sides before looking for a place to sit and eat. First Mary offered to let Peter sit with her and her friends, but he refused and instead went to look for Skip.

When he found Skip he was sitting with another AP chemistry teacher who had come on the trip and a scientist from Oscorp who was on her break. When Skip saw Peter he waved in greeting and went right back to talking with no indication that he wanted Peter to sit with him. In fact, there were no more seats left at their table and Skip didn't move to make more room.

Peter felt anxiety coil around the base of his spine like a snake and each second he stood there with his lunch tray the snake got tighter. He knew it was irrational, Skip was an adult who wanted to talk with other adults. He could go back and sit with Mary, but he didn't know her friends and he would feel awkward. It was so much like the school cafeteria, but now he didn't have Ned or even Freddy and Billy to be loser's with. 

Before he knew it he was moving, speed walking away from Skip's table and out of the cafeteria as silent as his worn down sneakers would allow and setting his lunch down as he went. He had a little less than an hour to cool down somewhere, he wanted-- no he  _ needed _ \-- to enjoy the rest of the field trip, anxiety be damned. 

He wandered, doing his best to stay out of sight of any passing scientists or guards, and eventually he found what looked like an empty room on the right side of the hall. The room was mostly dark save for a dim blue light that lined the walls and unlike the chemistry rooms on the left there were no large windows into other rooms or the hallway. Jutting out from the sides were dozens of tanks stacked on top of each other. Peter-- ever curious-- stepped closer to see what was in the tanks, the light too dim to see from a distance. 

At first he couldn’t see anything, just a small terrarium, and he assumed whatever was in there was hiding. But as he looked closer he saw the glint of webs reflecting off the dim blue light and he realized it was spiders. He looked around for any markings on the tanks and to his horror he discovered that he was in a room full of spiders in tanks. He shivered in disgust and instead of being curious as to why Oscorp had so many spiders, he decided to worry about it when he was not surrounded by the creepy arachnids. 

As he turned to leave he could hear a distant explosion that rocked the whole building. Suddenly alarms blared to life and Peter scrambled to the door only to realize that it was locked shut. The building was in lockdown, and Peter was stuck in a room full of spiders. 

Another explosion sounded, closer this time, and the building shook even more. Things started to fall from the shelves and Peter hoped that the tanks were well fastened. However, his Parker Luck struck again and all it took was one more explosion to send a few tanks careening to the ground and shattering on impact.

Peter started banging on the door and yelling to hopefully get someone’s attention. He was now more afraid of the mysterious spiders than he was of getting in trouble for being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. 

It wasn’t until there was another explosion and more tanks shattered against the ground that a security guard was able to get the door unlocked for Peter. The kid ran out, shaking everything he could to get off any spiders that had crawled on him, before noticing the siren and lights going off in the hallway. 

“Kid! What were you doing in there?!” The guard shouted over the blaring alarm, taking Peter’s attention from the flashing lights. 

“I-- uh, bathroom!” Peter said, hoping the chaos would let his lie pass by easier. The guard only glared before grabbing Peter’s arm rougher than necessary and dragging him down the flights of stairs until they made it into a bunker with the rest of the students. 

Peter had to kneel with his head down like in the school drills for a total of ten minutes before everything was deemed safe enough for them to leave. Despite everyone being safe they ended the tour and sent the students back, while chaos happened regularly in New York that didn’t mean everyone could just move on after every incident. 

Mary came up to him when they were outside, she looked stressed, but all Peter could concern himself with was trying to figure out what had happened while he was in the spider room. 

“Where were you?!” She sounded nearly hysterical. “No one could find you when the alarm went off?!”

“I-- I…” Peter swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling very lightheaded. So much that he didn’t notice Skip approaching. 

“Hey, you didn’t get hurt up there right? We were all really worried about you when we couldn’t find you,” Skip’s voice was calm and collected compared to Mary’s stressed tone. 

“‘M fine…” he mumbled, blinking a few times to clear his head, “I just feel a little weird…”

“Maybe it’s shock?” Skip tried, and Peter shrugged. He rubbed his hands together to ease some of the anxious energy he was feeling, but he felt a sharp pain when his hand ran over something round. 

He had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting, and he looked down to see a nasty looking spider bite firmly on the back of his hand, the two holes where the fangs entered clearly visible. Hd wondered how he could've missed it, but he had been full of adrenaline when the building started to shake and the spiders were released that he probably could've been stabbed and not noticed. He swallowed thickly, hoping above all hope that those spiders weren’t poisonous. He looked back up just in time to hear Mary finishing her sentence. 

“--do that again, if-- if something were to happen to you I’d--”

“You’d get in trouble with Rosa and Victor.” Peter frowned immediately, slightly annoyed. Perhaps it was the fact that he didn’t feel very good, but he didn’t like Mary pretending like she  _ cared _ . “Don’t pretend like you care. You’re not my sister. You’ve known me for a few days.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Mary looked hurt at Peter’s accusation. And Peter was too light headed to feel any guilt for his words. 

“Hey, guys, please no fighting. We’ve had enough trouble for one day,” Skip said, acting as an intermediary. “Let’s just get on the bus and get back to Queens. Then we can all go home and just relax okay? Enjoy the weekend.” Skip placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and while Peter initially flinched he didn’t fight it. He could feel a stabbing headache coming on and had no more strength to argue. So he just nodded and let Skip guide him and Mary to the bus. 

When he climbed in and sat down he fell asleep within a minute of the bus driving away and he didn’t wake up until he was outside of the home. 

Victor and Rosa were waiting for him, they looked annoyed but also worried. Someone had told them about him being away from the group. He didn’t know if it was Mary or a teacher, but it didn’t help his already sour mood one bit. 

“Peter you just can’t do that. We trusted you to go on this field trip, that you could handle yourself with maturity in the city. And you run off, no one could find you. Would you have come back if the building wasn’t in lockdown?” Victor was pacing in front of Peter, whose vision kept losing focus no matter how many times he wiped his glasses. 

“Yeah, I was just tryna-- I had to go to the bathroom.” 

Rosa shook her head, a solemn look on her face. “We know that’s a lie Peter…”

“In any case, we’re more upset that you snapped at Mary than you going off on your own.” Victor crossed his arms in front of himself. “She was worried about you, she was scared that you were off somewhere hurt, and you accused her of not caring. In this household we work together, we care for each other.”

Peter looked down at his hands and the still swollen spider bite,  expecting to get kicked out, and he didn’t have enough fight in him left to argue. 

“I need you to think about your words and work on an apology for Mary.” 

“What?” Peter looked up, and the movement caused a wave of nausea to crash over him. “That’s it?” He had been expecting to get kicked out.

“No, that’s not it. You’re going to have to do a few extra chores and earn our trust again. We still need to talk about what this means for you and your tutoring. We’ve also been pretty lenient when it comes to school since we understand it’s hard to transition to a new school and new home, but we’ve been getting complaints and--”

“Can we do this later?” Peter interrupted, he was staring at the ground and he could feel anxiety spike in his chest. “I can’t--” he swallowed thickly. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Do you think we were born yesterday?” Victor shook his head, “Rosa and I did the same thing when we didn’t wanna talk, so has every kid here. You need to face this now Peter, or--” Victor was interrupted by Peter bolting from his chair and running full speed to the trashcan where he proceeded to throw up, to the surprise of both Victor, Rosa, and all the kids eavesdropping on the other side of the door. 

“Oh…” was the only thing Victor could think of saying before Rosa jumped in. 

She gently approached Peter, wary of his aversion to touch, and leaned down close to him as he coughed and spit into the trash can. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Let it out. Why don’t you put on your pajamas in a bit and just lay down? We can talk once you’re feeling better.” 

Peter nodded and after a few long moments of gasping into the trash can he stood up and Victor and Rosa left so he could change. 

He crawled into his bed and Rosa came back with some medicine, he took it at her insistence, drank some gatorade, and promptly fell asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave comments and kudos!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry that this chapter is a bit late, I've been extremely busy. Anytime I wasn't working I was moving my stuff from my dorm to the basement, and then after my room was cleared from the basement up two flights of stairs to my room. The first few nights I slept on two suitcases pushed end to end until I bought an air mattress. But finally I have my own room in a house with other students. And more importantly I have an actual bed. 
> 
> Enough about me though. This chapter was mostly written on bus rides and during my breaks at work, but it's surprisingly longer than usual. I hope you like it!
> 
> Chapter Warnings: 
> 
> Past Suicide Attempt   
> (It is vaguely mentioned. It's only one sentence and not graphic at all. But stay safe nonetheless!)

Billy didn't have to wait for an alert from Superman to know that something was going on. Despite being on a separate island Fawcett went into modified lockdown and everyone's phones started to ping with alerts. There was a powered individual in Manhattan causing trouble. He was far enough away that Fawcett administration wasn't worried about him coming to the school, but they knew better than to throw caution to the wind when it came to metas and other enhanced individuals. Besides, he had a form of hovercraft that seemed to move very fast and it was better to be safe than sorry. 

Modified lockdown meant Billy had to be sneaky and quick. People could move inside the building, but no one could enter or exit. Luckily, the modified lockdown occurred right before his passing period into lunch, so he ducked into the boys bathroom, waited for it clear out, before shouting Shazam and using his strength to get through the locked windows.

He flew as quick as he could to Manhattan and it was easy to spot the maniac flying about on a weird hoverboard thing. Below him Manhattan continued like normal, unbothered by the near constant small supervillain attacks. He approached the maniac slowly and spoke loud enough for the other to hear. 

“Hey, Aladdin, can you and your magic carpet cool it?” Billy was proud of that line, but the pride quickly turned to disgust as the maniac turned around to face Billy and made his disturbingly disproportionate, green face visible. 

“The Red Cyclone,” the green man's voice came out more like a hiss than normal speech, “Maximum Voltage, The Human Powerstorm,  _ Captain Marvel _ . You are a man with many names. Tell me which one I should have inscribed on your tombstone!” The green man yelled before leaning forward on his hoverboard and hurtling himself towards Billy. 

Billy dodged, a little startled by the sudden attack, but not at all surprised. He  _ was  _ a hero and this guy was  _ obviously _ a villain. It was only natural. “Yeah, yeah. I'm not even sure if I  _ can _ die.” Billy taunted, he was bulletproof. That didn't make him immortal, but it made him a lot less mortal than other people. “What should I call you though? Wicked Witch of the West?” 

“I am The Green Goblin! And I will be your downfall!” 

Billy huffed at the fact this guy already had a name and he still hadn't committed to one after a month. The Green Goblin charged him again and Billy moved out of the way, laughing. “You're trying that again?!” He mocked, but The Green Goblin just smiled back, and that's when he heard it. 

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

His side exploded into flames that threw him hurtling back towards the ground. He caught himself a few stories up and looked at the spot on his side that had exploded. It was unfazed, and despite being thrown off he was pretty unfazed too. He flew back up to face The Green Goblin, considerably more annoyed. 

“Haha, funny trick. My turn.” He flew towards the villain, lining up a punch that would be strong enough to maim but not enough to kill. At least he hoped. He had gotten good at controlling his strength in the past month, but he didn't know how much the guy could take. 

He threw his punch, but The Green Goblin ducked out of the way at the last second with inhuman speed, placed his hand on Billy's side, and struck him with a sharp burst of explosive electricity.

Billy, with his own set of electric powers, shook the attack off easily, only getting thrown back slightly by the force. “That all you got?” Billy goaded, earning a sneer from The Green Goblin. Billy pointed his finger at the other's flying board and sent a lightning bolt right to it. “Two can play at that game!”

The lightning hit it's mark and the glider sputtered before starting to lose altitude. The goblin jumped off the glider and at Billy with a growl. Billy went to grab the goblin to keep him from latching onto Billy or falling to his death, but during his attempt to keep him an arms length away something was shoved into his mouth. 

_ Beep. _

_ Beep. _

_ Beep. _

Before Billy could spit the object out it exploded in a concussive wave that threw Billy back. He released the goblin as he went, who jumped back onto the recovering glider. It was dipping dangerously low, but the goblin remained firmly on it despite it sputtering out over and over again. Billy, however, hit the ground. He shook the attack off and stood back up, but before he could start flying back into the air to attack his vision swam and he listed to the side. 

He blinked a few times to clear his head, but it did nothing to help. He stumbled a bit and when he tried to focus again there were multiple Green Goblins all around him. His eyes widened at the sudden appearance of multiple goblins; were they a species? How had he not noticed them before? 

He didn't dwell for long and instead decided that attacking now and figuring out later was the best option, especially before any more explosives were thrown his way. He took a step forward so that he could fly up and attack them, but when his foot landed it sunk into the ground like it was made of quicksand. He struggled against it, but even with all of his strength he couldn't get it out. There was a chorus of maniacal laughter from the horde of goblins surrounding him before they all charged at him. 

He threw his hands up and over his face on instinct and waited for the onslaught of gliders and-- what he assumed-- explosions. 

And he waited.

And he waited a bit more. 

And there was nothing. 

He lowered his hands and looked around, there wasn't a Green Goblin in sight. The horde was replaced by scared civilians coming out to check if the coast was clear. When he looked behind him he realized that his foot was no longer trapped in the ground and it was back to being normal asphalt. The civilians around him looked on, losing fear by the second and slipping out their phones to capture photos and videos of the confused hero. 

Billy nodded and waved to them awkwardly before jumping to fly up, he was still confused about what happened and didn't want to risk taking another step.

As he flew up he looked at the damage caused to the nearby skyscraper-- mostly just broken windows-- and quickly realized that it was Oscorp. He froze for a second, realizing that Mary and Peter were in that building. He wanted to check on them, make sure they were okay, but if his school in Queens was on lockdown then Oscorp definitely was and he wouldn't be able to get in without causing a commotion. Not to mention the building's structural integrity was fine, which meant that the occupants were also probably fine. He left instead and went back to school, which was just as hard to sneak out of as it was to sneak into despite the modified lockdown being over. 

By the time he made it back lunch was over and Billy got a tardy to his next class, he couldn't really pay attention in class anyway. He had spent his entire lunch fighting a bad guy, and being a superhero burned a lot of calories. He was starving by the time school ended and the second he got home he made himself two ham and cheese sandwiches before he answered any of Freddy's questions-- of which there were many. 

* * *

Peter threw up three more times that night, which sucked since he only had ginger ale, soup, and saltines in his stomach. He would wake up in a cold sweat before sprinting to the bathroom as quietly as he could as to not wake up his roommates. He didn't get any more than five hours of sleep, and when he woke up at three in the morning due to a lurching stomach he realized he probably won't be able to go to tutoring tomorrow-- today. Not only were Victor and Rosa disappointed in him-- and that stung a lot more than other foster parents he'd had for a week-- but if he didn't feel better by morning he wasn't sure he could make it there in the first place.

He sat by the toilet as his stomach calmed itself and looked at the spider bite on the back of his hand. He frowned, he might have to tell them about the bite. If he was this sick it might be poisonous. He shuddered at the thought of the hospital and the memories that accompanied it. He remembered being told his uncle passed away in the hospital, and not long after his aunt at nine. He remembered getting his already healing broken arm set before being taken away from Mrs. Phillips at ten. He remembered getting his stomach pumped after swallowing a bottle of pain medication to get away from Mr. Moran and his belt and his locked doors. The hospital wasn't a good place to go, and he didn't feel like he could ask Victor and Rosa even if he wanted to. He could take care of himself. 

He ran his hand over the bite and his stomach lurched again when he made contact, but he didn't throw up. He went to adjust his glasses, but his fingers only touched his face. He had jumped out of bed, he hadn't grabbed his glasses. He paused in confusion, realizing that he could see just fine without them. He blinked a few times, but the clarity didn't change. He could see the two holes from the fangs in stark detail. 

He stood up slowly and examined his face in the mirror. He was sweaty and had big bags under his eyes, but he wasn't blurry. He could practically see his pores and the nearly invisible hairs on his face that signaled puberty. He leaned against the counter and looked closer in the mirror, he could see so much detail. He looked different without glasses, he'd worn them for as long as he could remember. He shook his head again, guessing that it must be a weird effect from being so sick. He went to go back to bed, but when he tried to walk away from the counter his hands were stuck causing him to trip up a bit. 

He tugged on the cheap countertop, but his hands were firmly stuck. He cursed, assuming that Darla or another one of the younger kids had gotten some really sticky super glue around the sink. He didn't have the patience to try and get his hands unstuck safely, so he gave a hard tug and prepared to lose the first few layers of skin. But when he tugged his hands came off the counter and a bit of the cheap countertop covering came with him. He looked at his hands and shook them aggressively until the countertop covering fell off. He took a few deep breaths and hurried to bed, hoping he was still asleep and that it had all been an oddly realistic dream. 

Come next morning Peter shot awake from a very loud squeaking sound. He looked around and spotted Rosa standing in the doorway. She froze, the door half opened, when Peter shot up. She looked surprised. 

“I didn’t think the hinges were loud enough to wake you,” she said, and Peter rubbed his ears. Everything sounded louder. “It’s okay though, you need to be up so I can give you medicine.” She fully entered the room and she was carrying a small tray with soup, pills, water, and a thermometer. She set the tray down next to his bed, he glanced up at Billy and Freddy’s bunk bed, they were gone-- probably downstairs with everyone else.

Rosa reached out to feel Peter’s forehead, but before she could make contact Peter leaned away involuntarily. Rosa frowned but kept her hand up. “I just want to see if you’re still warm.” Peter nodded, he hadn’t meant to move away. It was just a reaction. He was a little embarrassed and his cheeks flushed the tiniest bit pink.

Rosa reached out again and her hand landed on his forehead. He could feel the heat radiating off of her hand. He could feel every crease in her palm. He shuddered at the level of sensory input he was getting,   

“Huh, strange,” Rosa murmured, “you feel fine.” She took out the thermometer and put it under Peter’s tongue, when it beeped she took it out and looked at the temperature. Her brows furrowed in confusion, “your fever’s gone. That was quick. How’s your stomach?”

“My stomach? It’s… fine,” he hadn’t thought about it yet, but his stomach felt normal, he actually felt pretty great overall. “I actually feel okay.”

Rosa examined the thermometer a bit more before handing Peter the soup. “You seem better, maybe it was just a stomach bug. Still eat that though, and tell me if you start to feel bad again.”

Peter looked at the soup, he actually felt hungry which he rarely felt when sick. “Can I still go to tutoring? I mean, I actually feel better.”

Rosa paused in thought, “you're not just pretending to feel better to leave right?” Peter shook his head no, and Rosa sighed. “Yeah, you can go. If-- and only if-- you don't get nauseous before you leave. If you feel even slightly unwell I'm putting you back in this bed until you feel better.” She smiled after speaking, obviously meaning it more as a joke-- but her words still held some truth in them. 

Peter nodded and took a spoonful of soup. He swallowed it and his stomach stayed settled. He took another spoonful, and another, feeling hunger take over. Before long he had finished the soup and drank the water. Rosa had stood beside him and nodded before taking the bowl when he finished.

“I guess you are feeling better,” Peter nodded and Rosa set the bowl and cup on the tray before picking it up. “That means you can do chores before you go.” She smiled playfully and walked away. “C'mon, get up and get dressed. There's a chore chart downstairs.”

Peter got dressed, but when he slipped on a pair of jeans he could feel the rough fabric on his legs and he  _ hated it _ . He practically ripped the jeans off and looked at his legs in confusion, he had never had a problem with the jeans before, they were normally pretty comfortable. He turned them inside out to see if there was anything wrong with the inside, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. 

He put on the comfiest pair of sweatpants he had and a soft hoodie before going downstairs to find the chore chart. He had to wipe down the counters and collect and take out the garbage. He did it with relative ease. When he was taking out the final garbage bag Darla came up to him, she was carrying a small bin of her toys and heading to the stairs when she saw him. 

“Peter! How're you feeling? Do you still feel vomit-y?”

“No, I feel fine now. I'm all better.”

“Yay!” She paused before scrutinizing his face, Peter only looked on in confusion as he held the trash bag with one hand. “Where are you glasses?” She frowned, adjusting her own. 

He touched his face with his free hand and to his surprise he wasn't wearing glasses, but the world still looked surprisingly clear. He remembered what happened last night and frowned. “I'm... trying out contacts. I wanna see if I like them,” he lied. He didn't know what was going on and he didn't want to draw any suspicion. Darla was a known motormouth, and he didn't want her going around and telling everyone that his eyesight suddenly got way better overnight.

“Oh, but glasses are cool,” she said, nodding her head like she was reciting something someone had told her. “You should keep wearing them.”

“I'll uh… think about it. I gotta go throw this out right now though, so… see you later.” He said but before he could slip out the front door to throw out the trash bag he thought of something else. “Also, I think you spilled super glue or something around the sink. My hands got stuck to it last night.”

Darla shook her head, “it wasn't me. Rosa wont let me use super glue. I don't even know where it is. I can ask Eugene or Pedro for you though!”

“No, no, it's fine. Just forget I asked.” Peter left after that, even more confused.

Once he finished his chores and told Rosa that he was done, he left to catch a bus to the cafe where he was planning to meet Skip. He had a small bag with him that had a notebook and pencils in it, as well as his phone charger and wallet. 

It took him nearly forty minutes to get to the cafe, yet he was still early. He sat down at a table and waited awkwardly, he could see the employees giving him weird looks for not buying anything and he pointedly ignored them. Instead he went over everything that had happened to him recently in his head.

The back of his hand was healed from the bite, which was also confusing. He wondered if it was maybe just a hoax. Maybe he hadn't been bitten by a spider, but then what had made him so sick? And what had healed both his hand and his eyesight that night.

He laid one of his hands down on the table. If he could still see clearly sans glasses and Darla wasn't the culprit, than maybe someone hadn't put superglue on the counter. He thought about his hand sticking last night and when he tugged it, it stayed firmly planted and stuck to the table. His eyes widened as he pulled on his hands and only the table budged. It definitely wasn't super glue. It was him. 

Before he could get his hand unstuck Skip entered the cafe with a bag of his own. He spotted Peter immediately and waved at the boy, Peter waved back with the hand that wasn't stuck to the table. Skip sat down across from him and set his bag down. “Hey, how're you feeling? You were kind of out of it yesterday.”

“I'm fine,” Peter said, trying his best to seem casual with his hand stuck to the table. “Are you-- How're you?” 

“I'm fine,” Skip said through a laugh. “I wasn't the one who looked like he was about to pass out yesterday.” Skip leaned back in his chair and took his jacket off. “Are you hungry?” He gestured with this head to the cafe bar and register, “or thirsty?”

“I-- I'm good. Don't worry about me.” Peter was a little embarrassed about getting offered food, again, by the man who had continuously bought him lunch. He didn't have any money and he'd feel bad if Skip spent even more money on him.

“Awe c'mon, it's on me. Get something.” Skip stood up and looked at Peter, expecting him to do the same. Peter stood up slowly, but kept his hand firmly on the table. Skip placed a friendly hand on his shoulder and pointed his body towards the menu listed above the counter. “Take a gander, and decide what you want. You can pick anything on the menu.” 

Peter looked at the menu, but found that he couldn't focus. There was something akin to a headache starting up at the base of his skull and he wondered if he actually did still need his glasses. But even with the forming headache he could clearly read the words and prices listed.

As he read it he could feel his hand unsticking from the table, and the second it was free he moved it away. He did not need it to restick anytime soon-- or ever really. 

Skip walked him closer to the register and ordered for himself: a decaf americano and spinach puffs. He moved his hand to Peter's lower back to move him forward so he could order. But the second his hand made contact the forming headache worsened. He could only assume that he actually wasn't completely better. He took a small step forward and Skip's hand fell away and his headache eased up a bit. He added it up to the sensory issues he had been having since this morning. 

He ordered a small hot chocolate and stepped away. Skip frowned. “Aren't you hungry?” 

“I…” he placed a hand on his stomach. He actually was pretty hungry. He had survived on a lot less than a bowl of soup before though, and so he wondered why he felt hungry. “My stomach has been so-so recently.”

“Hmm,” Skip hummed in thought before turning to the cashier. “I'd like one of those big croissants and an order of oatmeal please.” He then turned back to Peter, “do you like oatmeal? Think your stomach can handle it?” 

“You really don't have to…” 

Skip waved off Peter's complaint and paid for the order. Then they went back to their table. Peter pulled out his notebook and a pencil and Skip pulled out a lesson book. He skimmed the pages before finding what he needed. 

They worked together for a few minutes until their food and drinks were ready. Skip grabbed them all from the hand off and brought them back to their table. Skip didn’t hesitate to dig into his spinach puffs and no amount of self control could keep Peter from the warm oatmeal. He finished it a lot quicker than he had meant to, and his embarrassment only caused Skip to laugh. “I remember when I was your age. I was starving all the time too. Finish up your croissant and if you’re hungry later I can get you more.” Peter didn’t nod his head in agreement, but he also didn’t shake it in disagreement. Instead he just picked up the croissant and picked at the flakey skin. 

They got back into the groove of working while they sipped their drinks. Skip gave Peter difficult problems and they worked through them together. Skip knew that Peter was smart, but he was very surprised with just how quickly the kid picked up on advanced subjects. 

Before the end of their lesson Skip said he was open to any questions or suggestions for what to learn about next week. Peter, without thinking, asked a question that had been plaguing his mind. “I know that this has to do a bit with biology, but are there any say… low level toxins that can affect the chemical makeup of a body? Maybe in a restorative way? Like say if there are damaged cells, could a chemical interference stop the damage and… signal a replacement?"

“I’m not as well versed in biology as I am chemistry, but I’m pretty sure what you described is-- in a sense-- the process of healing. Chemical signals are sent out from damaged cells to cause blood to clot or tissue to swell so the cells can get to work and start healing.”

“Okay, okay, but I mean faster. Like  _ way _ faster. And not the cells themselves… like a outside source.”

“So… super healing?” Skip looked at Peter quizzically. Peter paused and thought it through. It sounded dumb, but Skip just might be right. 

“Yeah… super healing…”

“Well, if superheroes are anything to go by then I’d say yes. There are things that can cause super healing, but I’m not sure I could call them toxins. Why do you ask?” Skip looked at Peter suspiciously, and Peter shrugged under the heavy gaze. 

“I-- I just watched a documentary on Captain America. I wanted to know where the scientists started.”

“Trust me, if someone knew how, they would’ve made the serum ages ago. Don’t worry about it too much, you still got a bit to go before you can try making the next super soldier serum." Skip chuckled at his own joke, but Peter was just even more unsettled. Did he have super healing? Could he stick to things? What else could he do? And was it all from the spider bite?

He distractedly tapped on his-- now empty-- mug of hot chocolate. After a few taps the mug cracked under his fingertip. He looked at the crack and his cheeks flushed bright red. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!" He moved his hands away from the mug and looked a Skip with something close to fear in his eyes. Skip just shook his head and chuckled at the skittish boy. 

"Don't worry about it, it was probably already broken." Skip stood from the table and Peter did the same only slower, still unsure if Skip was actually mad and hiding it until they got out of the cafe. Skip first walked to the counter and left a few bills in the tip jar as compensation before walking back to pick up his bag and jacket. "How're you getting home?"

"I take the bus," He checked his phone and pulled up the route with a transit app. His next bus would come in about thirty-six minutes. His face immediately fell as he realized he'd have to wait a while. "Which… doesn't come for a while."

"Do you need a ride?" Skip offered casually.

"What? No, no it's probably out of your way and it's a lot of gas, and--"

"Einstein," Skip interrupted, causing Peter to shut his mouth immediately. "I care about you. I want to take you home." He laid a hand on Peter's shoulder and looked him in the eyes. Peter stared back, ignoring the headache that came back from the added stimulus. 

As he looked into Skip's eyes he realized that, unlike anyone in his foster home, he didn't  _ have to _ care about Peter. He had chosen to take Peter under his wing and spend part of his weekends teaching Peter. He chose to spend money on him. The people in his foster home were nice, but they didn't pick him out and make him feel special. They didn't make him feel unwanted, but they didn't make him feel particularly wanted either. But Skip did. He admired the man. It wasn't his responsibility to care for-- or about-- Peter, but he did. 

He nodded and accepted the ride home, telling Skip the address to Victor and Rosa's house. It only took them about ten minutes by car, and when they pulled up Peter didn't necessarily want to get out. Skip's car was nice and warm and even though his head kept thrumming he liked the space. Back in the house he knew there would be screaming and arguing and loud video games, and with his senses seemingly all out of whack he wasn't sure if he would be able to handle it. Nonetheless, he thanked Skip and opened the car door, but before he could get out Skip spoke up. "You're my little Einstein, don't forget it. I know you won't because you're so full up on pride, but give me a call if you ever need to get away. There's not a lot I wouldn't do for you." Skip smiled at Peter, and Peter shyly smiled back. Skip definitely was better in Peter's eyes. "See you later, swing by my office any time. If I don't see you at school than I'll see you during our sessions alright? Same time, same place." 

Peter nodded and fully stepped out of the car. "See you later, Skip. Drive safe." He closed the door and walked inside the house, unable to keep a smile off of his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!   
> I really hoped you enjoyed it.   
> Please leave comments and kudos, I love reading your reactions and thoughts!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Pride Month!
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments! I always think I'm being clever, but I guess I'm pretty heavy handed (or ya'll are just clever). So many of you recognized Peter's spider sense. 
> 
> This chapter was a bit hard to write because I knew what I wanted to happen, but I didn't want what happened to happen. It's very angsty.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Chapter Warnings:
> 
> Implied Sexual Assault  
> Non-Consensual Drug Use

Peter Parker had superpowers.

He figured it out Saturday night before lights out. He went out to the alleyway when no one was looking for a few hours and tested them. He could stick to walls, both his hands and feet could stick-- though possible it wasn't as easy through shoes-- and after a few practice rounds where he fell flat on his ass he figured out how to climb walls. He had super strength, though he didn't know to what extent. He had super healing, enhanced senses, and super flexibility. 

He hadn't felt this great in years. He could do so much more. He had the fleeting thought that he could just leave, with powers like these he didn't  _ need _ a foster family. He could take care of himself. He had always said he could, but that had been more of a leave now, figure it out later kind of situation. Now he actually could take care of himself. He could sleep on rooftops and sneak into buildings to steal--

He stopped that train of thought immediately. The thought of his late aunt and uncle being disappointed in him for stealing kept him from considering the option any longer. He could still take care of himself, he'd just have to find a better means to do so. 

It finally seemed like his Parker Luck was looking up, that was until he came back from the alleyway to a very stressed and annoyed Victor and Rosa. They hadn't been able to find him and had assumed he had run away. When he explained that he had just been outside they tried to check his his pupils and smell him discreetly, but he knew. Many times foster parents-- especially if they knew Peter had a track record for disappearing-- would try to catch him abusing drugs or alcohol. He was completely clean though, he didn't drink or smoke or use drugs and their distrust for him was really starting to wear on his nerves. 

After they deemed him clear they sent him off to his room and he went, though he was very annoyed. He ruminated on his powers and what they meant for him, no more bullies, no more broken glasses, no more helplessness. He felt like it was a fresh start for him, he only needed to figure out what to do with it. 

Sunday came and went without incident, and despite all their family activities he could tell Victor and Rosa were keeping a bit of a closer eye on him than before. It only served to tick him off, but he pushed it down and calmed himself. He had powers now, he didn’t have to worry about anything-- especially not his foster family. 

In what seemed like too short of a time Monday had rolled around and Peter was back to dealing with boring classes and the annoying Breyer boys. Days of the week blended together, Skip would grab Peter for lunch some days and on the days where he didn’t Peter enjoyed lunch with Freddy and Billy. Despite alienating himself from Victor and Rosa more and more, he was connecting with the two boys. He wasn’t sure if it was their similarities in age or their similarities in experiences. But they were becoming friends, which Peter needed in this school. He didn’t have Ned here.

“Iron Man or Batman?” Freddy asked one day at lunch. 

“Batman,” Billy said. 

“Iron Man,” Peter said, at the same time as Billy. 

They looked at each other and Freddy’s eyebrows raised as he chewed on his soggy fries. “I gotta agree with Billy on this, Batman all the way.”

“Awe c’mon. Iron Man’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, but compared to Batman?” Freddy was quick to defend. Billy only shrugged, a small smile on his face at his friends obsession with superheroes. 

“Iron Man can fly with a super cool suit  _ he _ designed. I know I’m a nerd, but c’mon that has to give him some brownie points.”

“Valid, and it does. But Batman has cool jets and a grappling hook that he uses to swing around on.”

“And what exactly does that have to do with bats?” Peter said directly at Freddy, raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. “All I’m saying is that it’s misbranding.”

Billy laughed into the back of his hand. “He’s not wrong though. If he wants to swing around the city like that it’s more like  _ Monkeyman _ or  _ Spiderman _ . Something like that.”

“And  _ that’s _ why I come up with the names,” Freddy looked like he wanted to say more when the Breyer Boys approached the table, slamming a hand down. 

“What’s up r-tards?” Brett or Burke said, Peter hadn’t really paid enough attention to them to know the difference. 

“What is this? 2010? What do you want?” Freddy frowned and crossed his arms. 

“We want you to stop acting tough. Ever since the Red Cyclone showed up you’ve been acting like you’re all that. We need to take you down a peg. Show us just how much of a man you are when your little buddy isn’t here.”

“Cool it guys, seriously,” Billy interjected, looking generally annoyed with the two. 

“We got beef with you too weirdo, why don’t we kick both your asses huh?”

“They don’t wanna fight you, just leave them alone.” It was Peter’s time to speak up. Normally he wouldn’t directly put himself in the line of fire of two angry bullies, but ever since he realized he had powers he’d been feeling a bit braver. 

"Listen kid, you don't want beef with us. Mind your own business."

"Being an asshole makes this my business. It gives me beef with you." Peter said, feeling courage bubbling in his chest. However, right under the courage was his usual bout of anxiety and fear, even superpowers couldn't take that from him.

“It’s okay Peter, don’t get involved,” Billy said, he looked mostly calm. If anything he looked more concerned for Peter than his own well-being.

“Yeah, it’s fine. These two dweebs can’t touch us,” Freddy looked a little maniacal when he said that. 

“Only because you little shits have a superhero protecting you, if you weren’t such pussies you’d face us like men.”

Peter stood up at that, more than a little annoyed. He had found out he was a little older than the other two boys, and while he usually felt like a protector to any of his younger foster siblings, he felt even more protective now that he had abilities. "Leave them alone."

"Peter it's fine, seriously leave it," Billy said, going ignored by the other boys. 

"You wanna go too? Huh?" The Breyer boys looked even angrier now. 

"Hey, Pete. Back down alright," Freddy was losing his maniacal confidence, concerned for his foster brother. 

Peter promptly ignored them. "Maybe I do." 

There was a sharp tingle in the base of his skull that was almost painful. Peter found himself ducking under a punch without even meaning to. The world was in slow motion and as he looked between Burke-- he still didn't know who was who, but he assumed it was Burke-- and his fist flying over his head he realized he was in the perfect position to take him down. 

While not his forte like chemistry, he knew physics very well. He also knew that if he threw off the taller guys center of gravity he would fall over. So Peter, from his ducked position, rammed his shoulder into the bully's stomach with a bit more force than necessary to topple him over. 

It worked a bit too well and Burke landed on his ass and slid a few feet away. Peter looked at the stunned, downed bully, surprised by even himself. He'd only had these powers for a few days, he didn't know his limits or what it meant to use them against people. 

The cafeteria was still and quiet for a few long moments. It was like a picture, everyone immobilized in space at a specific time.

It stayed like that until Brett broke the silence. "You're fucking dead!" Brett lunged at Peter, Billy and Freddy stood up in response but there wasn't anything they could do. 

Peter sidestepped the lunge, using whatever had guided him to get Burke on the ground to take Brett out. 

When Brett passed him, the same kind of slow motion kicked in and Peter grabbed a handful of the school's crappy meatloaf from his tray and shoved it into Brett's face. He was a little surprised by his own actions, but he didn't have time to be surprised because when Brett wiped the meatloaf from his face he only looked more pissed. 

Freddy, not wanting to see Peter get pummeled and knowing that-- despite how cool it would be-- Billy wouldn't transform to fight their bully, came up with his own plan of action. 

"Food fight!" He shouted, grabbing his own handful of meatloaf and chucking it directly at Brett. 

However it didn't work quite as well as he thought it would. Everyone looked at him, but no one started to throw any of their food. It had only spurred the security guard to speed walk toward them looking very, very annoyed. 

"Awe c'mon guys, really?!" Freddy said to no one in particular when the security guard grabbed his arm to cart him off with the rest of the people involved. 

* * *

It was safe to say that Victor and Rosa were less than pleased when they got a call that three of their foster kids were in trouble for fighting. Billy was only pulled into the office as a witness and got a light punishment for being there, but he did his best to shift some of the blame off of Freddy and Peter. Brett and Burke did their best to shift all blame off of themselves as instigators; which worked to a degree since they were the ones with a bruised elbow and a meatloaf face.

Peter and Freddy both got detention and the Breyer boys and Billy all got warnings and had lunch detention the next day. 

When Peter saw the look on the principal’s face he knew that this instance would be detrimental to his goal of getting back to Midtown as soon as possible. The more trouble he caused the less likely Midtown would be to take him back-- especially with the same full-ride scholarship he had gotten before-- and he was already on thin ice with them. He needed to prove to both Midtown and Fawcett that he deserved to be in such a prestigious science school. If he was just the delinquent foster kid everyone saw him as he wouldn’t be getting back into that school anytime soon. 

When they all got home-- Billy and Peter considerably later than everyone else-- they were grounded and forced to explain themselves to Victor and Rosa. No video games, no hanging out with friends, no fun, for a whole two weeks. 

He thought that had meant he couldn’t go to his tutoring sessions with Skip, but when Saturday rolled around Victor offered to give him a ride. 

Peter knew it was to make sure he was going where he said he was, which would be reasonable if Skip hadn’t contacted them and told them about the tutoring plan. But he didn’t want to walk and so he accepted the ride anyway. 

Just like when Skip took him back to the house the car ride was a lot shorter than it would have been if he had taken the bus. But when they pulled up outside of the cafe Victor paused and looked at Peter with just a hint of seriousness in his eyes. Peter could feel anxiety spiking in his chest at the look.

“Peter,” Victor said, pausing before looking away with a sigh. “Is something wrong?” Peter didn’t answer so Victor continued, looking more concerned than serious as he spoke. “We know that it takes time to get used to a new place, to adjust. But you can talk to us. We want to help you, but you have to let us. With the fight at school this week and never talking to us, and not being okay with touch, and getting really sick and getting better overnight and… Rosa and I are worried about you. Do you want to try… professional help?”

Peter tensed at the threat of  _ professional help _ . The last time he had talked to a therapist was to deal with the trauma of his parents. When they had tried to make him see one after the death of his aunt and uncle he had refused, and when they made him go he didn’t talk. Eventually they stopped sending him; there were plenty of foster kids who could benefit from therapy and with so few mental health professionals willing to work with Medicaid it only took five sessions of silence before they gave up. 

He didn’t want help, not like that at least. He didn’t need someone judging his life and telling him what was wrong with him. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about his problems with his friends, let alone a stranger. The thought pricked at his nerves and put him on edge. “No,” he said, opening the passenger door and stepping out, barely taking enough time to undo his seatbelt. 

“Peter! Wait, we really think you should consider this or--”

“Or what!? You’ll kick me out?! Like everyone has before?! Call up Charlise and tell her to send me packing?! Go ahead! I hate going to Fawcett! I hate having to sit through those stupid classes! I hate the stupid all hands on deck thing we do! I hate getting no choice in what I do with my life!” Frustrated tears started to run down Peter’s cheeks and no matter how much he wiped at them with his sleeve they wouldn’t stop. “Have them send me upstate! I don’t care!” Peter slammed the door, still furiously wiping at his eyes, and walked towards the cafe. Victor was quick to get out of the van and follow him, only taking a few strides before he could place a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter reacted immediately, throwing Victor’s hand off of his shoulder and staring the taller man down with all the rage a depressed fifteen year old could muster.

They were causing quite a scene, drawing the attention of Skip as he approached the cafe. He looked concerned as he stepped up to the pair. “Is everything alright?’

“Mr. Westcott, I-- I’m sorry. I think tutoring might not be the best move right now, tensions are a little high and--” Victor started, concerned for Peter. He wanted to get him help, and doing extra work didn’t seem like the best way to start. 

“Don’t speak for me,” Peter said, venom laced in his voice. He turned to Skip quickly. “We’re still working today right?”

Skip paused, looking between Peter and Victor. “I… think it might be a good idea to go ahead with our lesson. He seems a little distressed and some time away from the house could help cool things off. And from my experience chemistry seems like it almost calms him. I’ll make sure he gets home on time and safely. If there’s any trouble I can call you, but overall… it might be more beneficial to just give him some space for right now.” Skip was speaking to Victor as Peter worked his way behind Skip. 

Victor didn’t want to give up that easily, he needed to talk to Peter. But Mr. Westcott’s idea did seem like it would be more helpful in the long run. He had known the teacher from Mary's AP chemistry class and he seemed trustworthy enough. So Victor nodded slowly, looking more than worried about Peter. “Alright, if you think it’ll help. But don’t feel like you have to. I just…” Victor looked passed Mr. Westcott and at Peter, who pointedly refused to look back at him. “We aren’t going to send you away. We just want to make sure that you’re happy. We’re worried about you Peter. We’ll talk more later.” He looked at Mr. Westcott and nodded in a silent plea to take care of Peter. 

Slowly but surely Victor got back into the van and drove off. Peter remained stock still, his shoulders hunched, until he could no longer hear the old van. He relaxed slowly with a breath out, he wiped at his puffy, red eyes one more time and had to take a moment to collect himself lest he start crying again. 

“Are you alright?”

Peter nodded, paused, and then shrugged. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Peter shook his head. 

“Do you actually want to go through tutoring right now?” Peter didn’t move. “Alright, _can_ you go through tutoring right now? Or would it be too much?”

There was a long pause, and eventually Peter shook his head. He couldn’t do it at the moment, too many thoughts were floating in his head. If he tried to learn anything new he wouldn’t retain any of it and that wouldn’t be helpful at all. 

Skip nodded. “I know you don’t want to go home--”

“That’s not my home.”

Skip sighed, “yes, sorry. I know you don’t want to go back there right now. If you want you can come to my place and just watch T.V. or something until you feel better.”

“Is that… okay?”

“I don’t mind, it’s better than sitting in a cafe. I can get some tests graded while you just… relax. I think that’s what you need. Some time to relax away from everyone else.”

Peter nodded, his outburst and subsequent emotional rollercoaster left him exhausted. He had been holding in so many emotions for so long, and there were still so many bouncing around in his head that every time he thought about what had just happened he felt something different. Guilt for yelling at Victor, anger for being distrusted, frustration for never getting to make any choices, anxiety for the future, sadness for his Parker Luck, and most of all numbness because he didn’t know how to feel. 

He let Skip lead him to his parked car and he slid into the passenger seat, wasting no time in curling up on himself. He was having difficulties staying present. His thoughts kept jumping around between the distant past to the near future, and from the near past to the distant future. He rarely spent any time thinking about the present, and he was barely cognizant enough to remember getting to Skip’s apartment or sitting on his couch. 

He had calmed himself enough to come back to the present when Skip handed him a mug of hot chocolate. “How’re you feeling?”

“‘M fine,” he mumbled, staring at the hot chocolate as he got back in touch with himself. He could feel a headache settled in the base of skull and he shuttered. He had usually gotten headaches after crying, but this one felt much worse. He hadn’t cried in a while and he assumed he had just really been needing to get it out. 

“Good, you had me worried there for a bit. You weren’t being very responsive.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright, I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” Skip ruffled Peter’s hair and he flinched at the touch. His headache was making him even more sensitive than his enhanced senses usually were. Skip didn’t retract his hand, instead he kept it firmly planted in Peter’s hair, giving it a small ruffle. “Drink up, if I learned anything from Harry Potter it’s that chocolate helps you to feel better.” 

Peter nodded, holding the mug of hot chocolate with both hands and feeling it’s warmth. He closed his eyes for a few moments, trying his best to quell the dizzying headache that made the thought of drinking the hot chocolate almost nauseating. He swallowed thickly and tamped that feeling down best he could, taking a few large gulps of the warm drink. 

Even with his body wanting him not to drink, the feeling of warm milk and chocolate working it’s way down his throat and into his stomach was very calming. Before long Peter finished the entire mug and his nausea was lifting. 

He raised his head to look for Skip, realizing for the first time that he was dissociating in a new environment. He didn’t want to totally lose it and make Skip take care of him. He felt guilt and anxiety creep up and he quickly got to his feet. 

He felt a strong need to turn around, and when he did Skip was there. The movement startled both Peter and the older man and he grabbed Peter’s shoulder’s to still him. “Whoa there, no need to move so fast. You were out of it for a bit so just relax for now alright.” 

“Wait no, I don’t-- you really don’t need to take care of me. I’m really really sorry I--”

“Einstein! Calm down, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have been doing anything else okay. Besides, you’ve been just sitting here. Don’t apologize, it’s not a problem, I promise.”

Peter swallowed and looked down, an apology on the tip of his tongue. “I don’t know why I-- what happened.”

Skip’s hands moved from Peter’s shoulders down his arms. “You were overwhelmed. You dissociated as a result. It’s alright, it happens to a lot of people.” Skip’s hands stopped at Peter’s forearms and after a pause he lifted one to cup the side of Peter’s head. “It’s alright if you don’t know, you’re safe here. You can just relax.”

Peter’s headache spiked when Skip touched him, but it was considerably duller than it had been before. Overall he felt relatively numb, especially since he’d been dealing with enhanced senses for two weeks. He could barely feel Skip’s hand on his arm or his head, and he found himself leaning more into than hands than he ever would. 

It didn’t feel nice, not like when his mom or dad or aunt or uncle cupped his head when he had been little. They had been trying to comfort him and it felt warm and soothing, the hand on his head and arm felt more like ants crawling on his skin. He wanted to move away, but he found his  body couldn’t even shiver involuntarily. 

He slumped totally into Skip’s hands and he adjusted his grip to set the smaller boy on the couch comfortably, hushing him quietly. Peter didn’t understand why he was being hushed, he couldn’t even speak. But his thoughts fragmented and within seconds his eyes slipped shut and he passed out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> The end of this chapter was NOT fun to write, and I held it off for a long time. Nothing is really gonna be more graphic than this. I have no desire to write anything graphic between those two, ever. 
> 
> If you wanna talk to me more about the fic, or really anything else, you can swing by my tumblr: https://petey-pi.tumblr.com/
> 
> (And in honor of pride month if you guys wanna help me out in getting top surgery feel free to check out my gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/zp9qwn-help-peter-get-something-off-his-chest )
> 
> Anyway, please leave kudos and comments! I love reading all of them and seeing what ya'll think!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the wait!!  
> I had to work seven days in a row and that both exhausted me both physically and mentally. But I got this chapter out, I don't plain to stop writing this fic until it's done.   
> Thank you so much for clicking on it and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
> Referenced Sexual Abuse   
> Violence

Peter Parker had superpowers.

He could stick to walls. He had super strength, super healing, enhanced senses, and super flexibility. He had great endurance and agility. 

He also had a fast metabolism. 

It’s simple biochemistry. A metabolism is the physical and chemical process that sustains life. Molecules go through either the catabolic process of degradation or oxidation or the anabolic process of building molecules through reduction or biosynthesis or both processes together. It is through those chemical processes where organisms get their source of energy and nutrients. 

If the metabolism is fast, it processes the molecules quickly, delivering the nutrients-- and in some cases toxins-- around the body. 

If a benzodiazepine like flunitrazepam-- commonly known as rohypnol-- were to be transmitted through the body very quickly it could bind to the receptors on GABA neurotransmitters, which cause GABA neurotransmitters to bind to neurons receptors more often. 

When GABA neurotransmitters bind to neuron receptors, brain function is decreased. 

Thusly someone with a fast metabolism would pass out very quickly after consuming rohypnol. And in large enough doses it can cause anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories after the inciting amnesiatic event. People often have no memories of what transpired whilst they were under the influence of rohypnol. 

However, while a fast metabolism delivers nutrients and toxins around the body quickly, it also breaks down molecules and uses the energy and nutrients up quicker. Which if there are no new benzodiazepine molecules to bind to the GABA receptors as a way to get GABA neurotransmitters to bind to neurons receptors and decrease brain function, brain function will increase sooner. 

Anterograde amnesia won't last as long and new memories will form. 

And someone with a fast metabolism would wake up sooner.

Peter Parker had a fast metabolism. 

He also had an early warning sense located in the base of his skull. It throbbed and controlled his movements when there was immediate danger. And it warned him when something just wasn't right. 

He had been ignoring it. Not purposefully. But when his fast metabolism burned through the rohypnol and he woke up to Skip on top of him, he had a blinding, throbbing headache and the sense in his head screaming at him to move. 

He hadn't meant to ignore it. He just didn't know it existed. 

He remembered the time in the cafeteria where he had taken on the Breyer boys. He had been following his sixth sense and allowing it to take control. It was screaming at him to move now, but his body wasn't listening; still sluggish from the drug. 

"Shit!" He could barely hear from above him. It sounded like he was underwater. "Why are you awake?!" 

He felt a heavy blow on the side of his head, an attempt to knock him back out. He could feel blood pooling near his eye socket as it throbbed, he'd have a bruised and swollen eye in no time. 

The impact disoriented him for a few seconds. He slid in and out of consciousness as his body fought off the drug and head contusion. But the feeling of hands on him, touching him, doing  _ things  _ to him, and the weight of Skip on top of him kept him from falling under again. 

He roused again, eyes fluttering open but unable to focus, and threw the weight off of him. He could hear more cursing and as he fought to get his limbs to listen to him he could hear scuffling as Skip stood up.  

"Einstein, wait!" Peter looked at the other, half on the couch and half off. He could barely keep himself standing, "don't-- you can't leave."

Peter didn't know what to think, let alone say. A man he had trusted, the only one he felt he could talk to and be listened to, had done unspeakable things to him and was now asking him to  _ stay _ . He was at a loss for what to do-- what to say even. His brain was muddled from the drugs and the realization that everything leading up to this had all been a farce. Had Skip just been using him?

"You-- you… why?" He felt completely naked in front of the other man, even though he still had most of his clothes on. He had been in a state of partial undress, but no matter how many clothes his shaky hands put back on he still felt exposed. 

"You're so bright, so smart, so kind. Just hear me out, please." Skips voice was pleading and desperate, and despite the screaming in Peter's head telling him to leave, he stayed. "I couldn't resist. Your mind was so alluring, I found myself drawn to it I-- I had no control." 

"No-- no! That's not how this works," his voice was shaky and he blinked back tears. He could feel the forming bruise on his cheek with each blink.

"I'm weak Einstein, I'm just a weak man who can't help it." Skip approached Peter, arms stretched outward as a sign that he meant no harm. But Peter's head screamed at him that Skip  _ did _ mean harm, and he always had. 

"Stop!" Peter shouted, tears still running down his face. 

"You need to understand, I never meant to hurt you I just--" 

"You hit me!"

"That was an accident."

"How was that an accident?!" Peter was feeling hysterical, with his head yelling at him and his body still fighting off exhaustion he couldn't help it.

"Please. Let's just talk."

"No! I don't-- I don't wanna talk!" Peter yelled. He took a step to leave but his body crumpled without support from the couch. Skip moved to help him, but Peter's mind yelled at him that danger was approaching and he scrambled back. "Don't touch me!"

"Einstein please--"

"Stop!"

Skip's patience was wearing thin and he approached Peter anyway, cornering the boy against the wall. He grabbed both sides of Peter's head and made him look at Skip. He could see the tears flowing from the boys fearful eyes and he frowned. "Shh shh," he hushed him, rubbing his thumb along the boys cheek in an attempt to soothe him. It only made Peter more panicked. "you need to calm down. If you go around causing trouble you won't get back into Midtown." The threat was clear, and Peter's breath hitched. "You'll fall behind, won't get your AP credit. And then what?" Peter was frozen in fear, his body screaming at him to  _ do something _ . But he couldn't move. "You should feel lucky that I'm willing to help you. That I'm willing to love you. Nobody wants a foster kid like you, you only have me. I'm the only one that cares about you, that's helped you. You wanna throw that all away?"

Skip leaned in to kiss Peter's forehead and that was the final straw that broke him. 

Peter headbutted the older man and be could feel a sickening crack as Skip’s nose caved under his forehead. Skip fell back, clutching his now broken and bleeding nose, and Peter took his chance. He got up on shaky legs and stumbled as quickly as he could to the door, grabbing anything he knew was his. He looked like a newborn deer running for the first time but he didn't care, he needed to get out. 

He ran out of the apartment, still barefoot but clutching his shoes in his hands. He didn't wait for the elevator, he took the stairs as fast as his wobbly legs could and ran out into the cold New York evening with nothing in his feet.

* * *

Peter wasn’t sure how long he ran, but when he couldn’t run anymore he walked, and when he couldn’t walk he sat down under an elevated subway line in Jackson Heights. He wasn’t quite sure where exactly Skip’s apartment had been, but he knew they had been on the border between Brooklyn and Queens-- probably Greenpoint or Williamsburg-- and he had run all the way to Jackson Heights. It was dark out by now, he wasn’t sure what time it was but he knew it had to be a while. He wasn’t sweaty at all, an effect of his newfound powers no doubt, but he was exhausted. His feet were numb and beyond dirty, but every cut he got healed within a few minutes. 

He didn’t put his shoes on until he sat down. And when he felt his bare feet inside the shoes he almost sobbed. He didn’t know where his socks were-- probably back at Skip’s-- and their absence broke something in him. 

He felt shattered, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a mirror. He sat there for a long time, holding onto what little composition he had. The only thing that pulled him out of his trance was the sound of a distant shout barely audible over the roar of passing trains.

He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but he heard it again and again. And something in him gave him the strength to stand up and follow the sound. 

It lead him to a dimly lit alleyway a few blocks in a bad and somewhat deserted direction. He could see two figures in the alleyway, a larger man and a younger woman. The larger man looked threatening, he had a pocket knife in one hand and was covering the young girl’s mouth with his other. Her shouts were muffled and if it hadn’t been for his super hearing he would’ve missed it completely in the roar of the city streets and the subways above him. 

He was still exhausted and dissociative from what had just happened to him--  _ Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it _ \-- so he reacted without thinking. He ran at the man, mind mostly blank, and attacked. He punched and kicked and let the warning system in his head guide his movements until the man was downed. However he didn’t stop even when his sense had stopped guiding him. He was running automatically. Peter climbed on top of the older man, fisted the cuff of his shirt, and brought his fist back and then down and across the mans face. He did it again and again, all the rage and confusion pouring out all at once onto a random stranger in an alley. 

By the time the police arrived the man was limp in Peter’s grasp. He was still alive--  _ thank god _ \-- but his face was swollen, bruised, and bloody. Peter’s knuckles were covered in a layer of blood that he knew couldn’t be his. 

With his still bruised and swollen eye as well as the few cuts he had gotten from the man’s pocket knife as he took him down, the cops had considered it an act of self defense after getting caught up in a mugging. The young girl had called the cops after Peter took the man down and told them what had happened. He wouldn’t get in much legal trouble for his actions, but the attack would go on his record and his social worker would find out. 

Peter didn’t care. He felt numb. He had seen the look in the man’s eyes. He had sensed what danger the man could cause. It hadn’t been just an attempted mugging, it was never that simple. Peter knew that’s what set him off, but he refused to acknowledge it. If he made those connections he’d be forced to confront what happened to him. He couldn’t do that, not right now. He was positive it would break him. 

The police took him back to Victor and Rosa’s house after that. They gave him a shock blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, assuming he was dissociative because of the mugger. He knew he’d get into serious trouble when he got back. He might even end up going upstate, and at this point he couldn’t care less. He felt like a shell of a person, a husk of human flesh with nothing more than the shadow of who he used to be on the inside. 

Before that night he had lost so much and fought depression daily. But after what had happened he felt like he didn’t have much fight left in him anymore. 

When they pulled up outside the house Peter almost had a heart attack. Skip’s car was parked out front right next to the van. He swallowed thickly and stepped out, walking with the officer all the way to the front door. The officer knocked and it took a total of three short seconds for the door to open. 

Standing there was Rosa, she looked beyond stressed, Victor wasn’t far behind her. If Peter looked passed both of them he could see Skip, sitting there looking innocently calm. Just the sight of him made Peter’s stomach do flips and he felt like the world was closing in on him. The man’s face was bruised under his eyes with tape keeping a recently fixed nose in place, but other than that he looked perfectly collected. 

“Peter…” Rosa looked both pissed and relieved at the same time, and Peter almost choked with the whirlpool of confusing emotions he felt. He felt disappointed, angry, confused, stressed, depressed, guilty, and so much more. So much that it rounded out to him not understanding what he felt, and practically feeling nothing as his mind tried to cope with it. 

The officer explained what happened and left, and when Peter was brought in they started speaking to him about events he hadn’t even been a part of like he had been a part of them. 

“What has gotten into you?” Rosa said, she had pulled him off to the side, away from Skip and Victor. But Peter could still hear Skip, and he focused in on the sounds. His breathing, his movements, his quiet conversation with Victor. As if any change meant Skip was coming for him again. “You got into a fight at school, you-- you’re not telling anyone when you leave, and then this?! Mr. Westcott has been helping you, he’s been advocating for you. And this is what you do to him?!”

Rosa was angry, Peter knew that. But he didn’t know what she was angry about. She didn’t know what Skip had told her, but he knew that he had painted Peter as the villain in their story. If Skip had told the truth they wouldn’t have let him into their house, they wouldn’t have been so mad at Peter, Skip would’ve been arrested, everything would have made sense. Right?

What Skip had done was illegal, it was morally wrong. Victor and Rosa were nice people, they had their flaws but they were  _ good _ . There was no way they would trust that monster after what he did. Right? Skip had been the only one to advocate for him doing higher level work. Skip had been trying to keep him up to date with his AP chemistry class. He had helped him, but that didn’t give him an excuse for what he did… right?

“I thought you were better than this Peter. I know what it’s like to be a foster kid okay, running away is… it’s expected. But attacking someone who has done but help you? I don’t… I just don’t understand. Being mad at us? Okay. At your social worker? Okay. But Mr. Westcott…? Peter I expected better from you. And then what? You run off and get into fights with strangers?”

Peter felt like he was going to throw up. “I don’t… I didn’t…” But he had. He had attacked Skip. He had valid reason though, he knew he had. “Skip he…” Peter didn’t know what to say. He had woken up to Skip doing  _ something _ wholly inappropriate, but he wasn’t completely sure what had transpired. Skip had drugged him and done things to him. But he found that when he tried to say that his words caught in his throat and fear put his heart in a vice grip. 

He couldn’t say it. If he did that would make it real. And so much more trouble would be raised. What would that mean for him? Would there be court cases? He had just scraped by after beating up the mugger. If he says something about what Skip did he might have to go to court, deal with legal issues. And then what? Everyone knows what happened to him? And even then, he didn’t know exactly what happened. And it was only them, which meant only Skip’s word against his. And he was already wasn’t trusted by Victor and Rosa. 

“I don’t know,” that was all he said. There were too many thoughts running around his head. And while part of him wanted to tell Rosa what happened, he just  _ couldn’t _ . “I just wanna go upstairs.” Rosa tried to argue, but Peter walked past her. And when he was halfway upstairs she realized it was probably a good idea to just let him go. Everyone was on edge at the moment, and maybe they could talk more in the morning. 

Peter went upstairs and went into his shared room, ignoring any questions that Billy and Freddy had. It took Billy telling Freddy to leave him alone and fifteen minutes for them to both stop trying to talk to him. Peter just laid in his bed, curled up under blankets, still in his clothes. He didn’t even take his shoes off. He felt sick, like if he moved he’d throw up and pass out. So he just laid there, feeling like worms were crawling under his skin and telling him how disgusting he was laying there like this after what happened. How disgusting he was for letting this happen, and for telling no one. If he hadn’t run away, if he hadn’t fought, he wouldn’t be in as much trouble. But he had run away, he had fought, and Skip had gotten to them first. And now he was in trouble, and Skip had proof to support his side of the story. Something Peter didn’t have. 

He could hear Skip leave the house after a few minutes, and it wasn’t until hours later-- nearing three in the morning-- that Peter let himself actually exhale. He cried, but he kept his sobs quiet as to not wake Billy and Freddy. He was tired, but there was no way he could sleep. So he just cried, still under the covers like a child scared of the dark. 

Peter Parker had superpowers. But he also had Parker Luck, and his superpowers couldn’t protect him from everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I feel like this chapter had a bit of a different vibe to it than the rest. I feel like it was a bit more of a trip into Peter's mind than the other's had been. Tell me what you think in the comments!
> 
> Also it's been four years since I've taken biology and three since chemistry so please tell me if I got anything wrong.


End file.
